


Reunion

by WayWardWonderer



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: EVERYONE - Freeform, Family, Gen, Group, Meeting, Rescue, Reunion, Revenge, friends - Freeform, together, trap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 06:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12475172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WayWardWonderer/pseuds/WayWardWonderer
Summary: Mike Nelson, Crow and Tom Servo receive an invitation for a 'family reunion' from Joel Robinson. They meet at Gizmonic Institute when things take a turn for the weird! The past catches up with our unlikely heroes forcing the odd family to deal with their strangest encounters from the Satellite of Love and the experiments that tormented the MST3k crew during their theatre isolation.





	Reunion

It's been over 25 years since Joel Robinson was first shot into space aboard the 'Satellite of Love' By Dr. Clayton Forrester and Dr. Laurence 'Larry' Erhardt.

Joel (unexpectedly) escaped from the S.O.L., thanks to Gypsy and Mike Nelson's quick thinking; and managed to have a relatively normal, though extremely tame life back on Earth as a successful author and inventor.

Subsequently Mike was knocked unconscious and sent aboard the S.O.L. as punishment for his actions and to replace Joel as Dr. Forrester's reluctant guinea pig in the (bad) movie watching experiment.

Though Joel was the creator/father/friend of the four robots; Cambot, Gypsy, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, they too remained stranded on the S.O.L. Fortunately, the four were quickly 'adopted' by Mike shortly after his arrival, acting as their surrogate 'big brother'.

When the S.O.L. finally fell from orbit and crash landed on Earth, just outside a nature reserve in Minnesota, Mike and the bots escaped the burning wreckage with minor damage and only a few broken bones. Little did they know that Joel had secretly aided in their escape from the underground, unrecognized, unofficial Gizmonic Institute law; after the enigmatic corporation's goons tried to wrongly arrest Mike for satellite-jacking.

Gypsy and Cambot had started their lives anew together in Minneapolis while Tom and Crow moved in with Mike in his small apartment just outside of Milwaukee.

As the 26th anniversary of Joel's initial stranding approaches Mike, Tom and Crow receive an invitation for a family reunion from their wayward friend/father.

What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

 

Another day of watching TV, riffing on terrible shows and movies, and mocking Mike's daily routine, passed on as per usual in the modest apartment. Mike returned after working a menial shift at a boring job, grabbing ahold of the mail bundle that was protruding from the mailbox in the lobby. He unlocked the door and entered his modest dwelling without a word to his metallic roommates and dropped the mail on the white kitchen counter before disappearing into his bedroom.

Tom Servo had taken the liberty of 'sorting' Mike's mail after Mike had placed it on the counter. "Bill, bill, bill, Crow, bill, birthday card for Mike, this belongs to the neighbor... Hey! Check this out Mike!" The wide assortment of white envelopes littered the floor encircling the red robot, with a single letter folded out before him on the floor.

"What is it-... Tom!" He saw the mess on the floor and reacted accordingly, he had changed into different street clothes from his uncomfortable work clothes. "Come on, man! I just swept this room!" He stooped over to pick up the scattered parcels.

Crow overheard the conversation from the small living room couch and offered his unsolicited input. "Yeah, the day we moved in!"

"But Mike!" Tom continued, the piece of interesting mail still laying in temptation on the floor. "we got an invitation!"

"So what?" Crow continued on as Mike began picking up the mess.

"'So what'? You dunderhead! It's from Joel!"

"Joel?!" Mike and Crow replied in unison. Mike comically threw the gathered letters into the air as he scrambled to retrieve the opened letter from Tom.

"Hey! I wasn't done reading that!" The once again loose mail rained down on Tom who turned his head back and forth trying to see through the papery mess.

Launching himself excitedly off the couch Crow made his way over to his two roommates. "Let me see! Let me see!" He was trying to pull Mike's arm down so he could read the letter for himself. "Mike, I'm not as tall as you! Bend over!"

Mike ignored the request. "Hold on guys! Just wait a sec..." Mike silently read the letter to himself and grinned.

"Well?" Crow pestered. "What's it say?"

"Calm down, stop pulling on my arm. I'll read it to you." Mike dramatically cleared his throat before reciting the letter aloud.

'Dear fellas,

It's been 27 years since I had been shot into space aboard the 'Satellite of Love', and 27 years since you were 'born'. I couldn't take you with me when Gypsy; with the assistance of Mike, helped me finally escape from the satellite after locating the only escape pod in storage. Unfortunately we didn't have a chance to say a proper good-bye then. When I ended up in the Australian outback I was relieved to be back on Earth, but I missed you guys as soon as I set foot outside the pod.'

Mike stopped as Crow and Tom's sudden sobbing distracted him from the letter.

"What?" Crow looked away from Mike. "Keep reading! And don't look at me!"

"Yeah! Keep going Mike! Oh, Joel..." Tom and Crow embraced each other dramatically at Mike's feet.

Shrugging off their emotional outbursts Mike continued to read over their continuous crying and sniffling.

'I was able to have a pretty normal, but very dull, life back on Earth without you guys. I know you were in good hands when Mike was sent aboard the satellite but I always felt guilty because the only reason he ended up stranded was because he helped me out, and the 'Mads' took out their anger on him.

It's been 17 years since I repaired the S.O.L. for you guys and left you behind all over again, but I want to see you guys again so I can thank Mike in person and apologize for not finding you sooner after the Satellite of Love crashed on Earth. This will be a family reunion that has been long overdue. If you can, please meet me at Gizmonic Institute.'

"WHAT?!" Crow and Tom yelled out together.

"He wants to meet us WHERE?!" Tom asked loudly, the small pile of letters being tossed into the air for the third time as he flailed about in dramatic shock.

"Is he NUTS?!" Crow responded. "Oh wait, he created us so... yeah, he's nuts. But is he CRAZY?! Why would he want us to go back to the place where our chaotic saga got started?!"

"Whoa, calm down guys." Mike tried to soothe their building emotional responses. "Let me finish reading, alright?"

Tom sarcastically responded. "Well then finish it already! Geez!"

'I know you guys are freaking out about the idea of meeting at Gizmonic-'

"Are not." Tom interrupted flatly.

Mike arched his eyebrow and continued on. 'I know you guys are freaking out about the idea of meeting at Gizmonic Institute, but you can relax, after the S.O.L. crashed landed there was an intense investigation and the company was shut down. The institute itself has been abandoned for 13 years.'

"Oooohhhh!" Crow breathed a sigh of relief. "Sure, then why the hell not? Let's go already!"

'No one will be around so we can hang out and catch up on everything in our lives without being bothered by mad scientists, evil doctors or their goofy lackeys. I've enclosed a small card with the address, time and directions.'

Crow snatched the small card with the information from Mike's hand and Mike didn't try to get it back. Tom just leaned uncomfortably close to Crow so he could see the card for himself.

'Don't worry about Gypsy I know she's busy with her multi-million dollar company and I'm sure Cambot wouldn't have too much to say either. Let's just have a reunion with us guys and no bad movies or invention exchanges to drive us insane.

Your Friend/Father,

Joel Robinson.

p.s. Mitchell!'

"Mitchell?" Mike asked confused.

"MITCHELL!" Crow and Tom repeated in joyous synchronization.

"Wait a minute: Friend 'slash' father? Seriously?" Mike found that last bit of information too odd to not ask about, even stranger than the 'Mitchell' line. "Did he really act like your father?"

"Uh..." Tom looked at Mike but remained uncomfortably close to Crow. "Yeah, sometimes." He finally admitted.

"What did he do?" Mike was grinning like an idiot. "Chores? Curfew? Time-outs? Spankings?"

"Hey!" Crow defended himself. "Someone had to lay down the law."

"...And someone had to break it! You know, us!" Tom finished.

"Yeah, anarchy!" Crow cheered. "You weren't around then, it was more fun with Joel!"

"Hey! Come on, we had some good times together, didn't we?" Mike sounded a little hurt by the comment.

Crow and Tom exchanged glances before uttering in unison. "Uhhhh... Sure. Sure we did!"

Tom continued on the subject. "Like the time we almost escaped with the jet pack powered by the 'L.O.X'. that wasn't actually fuel like liquid oxygen, but turned out to be a fish product?"

"Yeah." Crow agreed. "Or like the time you used the umbilicus and managed to hit Dr. Forrester right in the chops with a banana cream pie!"

"That was a good one!" Tom agreed while laughing. "Remember the time we got sent through a parallel dimension thanks to Forester's invention and the ion storm?"

"I still don't think that actually happened." Crow responded. "Besides, it was you and Gypsy that got stuck in the parallel dimension while Mike and I had to deal with your evil doppelgangers."

Tom kept going. "Ooh, ooh! Wait! Remember the time we 'debriefed' Mike?"

"Oh yeah!" The robotic duo exchanged maniacal laughter.

Mike stopped to ponder the memory. "Yeah, how did you guys steal my underpants without removing my jumpsuit first?"

"Like I said before," Crow replied sheepishly. "we have our tricks!"

Tom thought of something else and giggled immaturely. "Hey Crow, remember all the photos of Mike in his little sailor suit-"

Mike grabbed the small card from Crow's metal hands and held it up high above their heads to interrupt that particular conversation. This action was met with a whiny response from both Tom and Crow. "Heeeey! Give it!"

"So," Mike dangled the information card high into the air, teasing his robot friends. "do you guys want to go see Joel, or not?"

Three days after Joel's invitation for the unexpected but long overdue family reunion arrived Mike, Crow and Tom Servo were on the road heading toward the long abandoned Gizmonic Institute. To fit the mood for the impending situation Mike put on his old blue jumpsuit, despite Crow and Tom's insistence that he was now too fat to wear the jumpsuit; he proved them wrong.

Starting out on the journey was simple enough for the trio: stop for gas, stop for snacks, stop for more snacks, stop because Crow got motion sick one time and stopped because Mike needed to recharge the GPS. From the backseat of the relatively worn out vehicle Mike was forced to endure Crow and Tom's ongoing shenanigans as per usual, but the long drive and broken radio made their hijinks more annoying and less entertaining to Mike.

"Dink!" Tom yelled at Crow from his side of the car.

"Dickweed!" Crow, sitting behind Mike, responded just as loud as Tom.

"Dingus!"

"Dummy!"

"Dunderhead!"

"Dimwit!"

"Doofus!"

"Uh... Damn!" Crow sputtered.

"That doesn't count Crow!" Tom protested Crow's latest exchange of insults.

"Does too!" Crow defended his choice stubbornly.

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

"Mike!" Tom yelled at their human companion hoping he'd end the debate, and even more hopefully end it in his favor.

"What?" Mike looked at the two bickering robots in the rearview mirror. Both Tom and Crow were strapped into the boosterseats that Mike had embarrassingly installed in his car several years ago to help accommodate his miniature passengers.

"We're playing the 'Dirty-Name-Game' and Crow is trying to say 'damn' is a bad name!" Tom explained in almost a whine.

"It's a bad word!" Crow persisted.

"But it's not the same!"

"It is too!"

"Is NOT!"

Nearing the end of his dwindling patience as the unofficial referee Mike tried a new tactic. "Why don't you guys play a different game? Hm?"

Tom sounded a little offended at the suggestion. "Because we're only to letter 'D', we can't stop now!"

"Yeah!" Crow finally agreed with Tom. "Besides, there's nothing else to do and we're bored!"

"Look, we only have ten more minutes on the road before we're there. Can you please play the 'Quiet Game' instead?"

Crow suddenly got excited knowing they were so close to their destination at last. "Only ten minutes! This is great!" He looked over at Tom. "Hey Servo?"

"Yeah Crow?"

"Mock..."

"Yeah!"

"ing..."

"Yeah!"

"bird..."

"Yeah!"

Before the little bots could continue their irritating little song Mike protested and put a stop to it. "NO! Don't do that! Never do that!" He could feel a headache coming on.

"What?" Both Tom and Crow answered in perfect unison, feigning their innocence and hiding their amusement.

"Guys, I will turn this car around! I mean it."

"Sure!" Tom teased knowing that Mike would never do that.

"Yeah right, I dare ya'!" Crow badgered on.

"Alright fine, then I'm going to take you two rock climbing instead!"

"NO!" Once more the bots responded together with one voice. "Not that!"

"Sorry Mike..." Tom apologized sincerely.

"We'll be good..." Crow added to Tom's apology. "We promise."

Mike shook his head a little at the robot companions that had unexpectedly become a big part of his life. Despite their constant bickering, virtually a perfect example of humanoid sibling rivalry, Mike couldn't imagine how horrible his life stranded aboard the 'Satellite of Love' could've been without them. Fortunately for both Mike and the bots the role of 'big brother' suited him very well.

As the car rounded a less-traveled curve and pulled off onto an isolated road, Mike began seeing flashbacks to his first (and only) day as a temp working for Dr. Clayton Forrestor and (TV's) Frank at Gizmonic Institute. He often wondered what his life would've been if he had passed up the job opportunity and never set foot in the diabolical building all those years ago, or if he hadn't helped Gypsy get Joel off the 'Satellite of Love', or didn't ask for Dr. Forrestor to fill out his time card.

"Hey guys?" Mike tried to sound cheerful, feeling a little sorry for having to discipline the robots on what was supposed to be a fun day.

"Yes Mike?" Tom answered nervously.

"We're here."

Both bots turned their heads to look out Crow's rear passenger window to see the large Hollywood-esque 'Gizmonic Institute' sign on the side of the modest mountain range behind the institute itself. The sign had faded over time, the paint was chipped and several of the letters had broken loose and fallen from their perch.

"'Gemkistut'?" Crow attempted to read the disheveled sign's remaining letters: 'G-mo-c I-s-tut-'. "What da' hell? Mike! Did you lie to us?"

"No Crow." Mike stifled his laugh. "The sign used to say 'Gizmonic Institute', I swear. It's just old."

Tom was taking in the scenery and spotted the dilapidated building at the foot of the mountain range. "Wow. 'Father Time' really took a bat to this place!"

Mike pulled into the long-emptied parking lot in front of the institute and turned off the car. The three occupants stared through the windshield at the 'G' shaped structure taking note of the many broken windows, chipped plaster, faded paint and heavily chained front doors.

"Creepy." Crow observed, still strapped in his boosterseat. "I bet it smells like old cheese inside!"

"Or a week-old bologna sandwich." Tom added.

"Or my socks..." Mike joined in.

"Eww..." Tom grimaced.

"Gross!" Crow blurted. "Don't even joke about that!"

"He's right Mike. We're worried about you. We think you may have a condition."

"I don't have a condition!" Mike defended. "All humans have smelly feet which mean all humans have smelly socks, too."

"Joel never smelled that bad!"

"Yeah!" Crow butted in. "What gives?"

Mike bowed his head in amused defeat. The sound of an approaching vehicle from the road caught the attention of the freshly arrived visitors. Glancing in the rearview mirror Mike spied a small red pick up truck pulling into the parking lot and coming a halt just behind his car.

"Is that...?" Mike was trying to see the driver's face through the truck's tinted windshield. To him it was just another face in a red jumpsuit.

Both bots shouted joyfully in unison as they quickly recognized the driver of the truck. "Joel!"

"Joel!" The two bots cried out in joy together as they watched Joel exit his pick up truck through the rear windshield of Mike's car.

"Mike!" Crow whined impatiently as he began spastically clawing and biting at his seatbelt. "Get these stupid straps off of me!"

"Yeah Mike!" Tom whined just as impatiently as Crow. "Move it! Let's go!"

Mike reached into the backseat and unfastened Crow's seatbelt first and then Tom's. Crow began frantically pulling on the door handle but the door remained closed.

"Mike!" Crow whined again, even louder. "Unlock the door! What's the matter with you?!"

Just to toy with the energetic duo Mike slowly hovered his finger over the automatic door lock and exaggerated the motion of pressing down the button.

"Hurry! Move it, move it, MOVE IT!" Tom was beginning to bounce around in his seat, clearly unamused by Mike's joke.

As soon as the audible 'click' of the doors unlocking was heard, Crow flung open his door and scrambled out of the backseat of the car, his legs getting momentarily tangled in the seatbelt during his dramatic exit. Tom, unable to open his own door, quickly followed Crow and managed to nimbly hover over the seatbelt without getting caught himself.

Mike watched in the rearview mirror as the two robots clambered all over Joel as their creator did his best to hug the bots without being knocked down to the ground in the process. From his seat in the car, though muffled, Mike could hear the rapid paced voices of Crow and Tom frantically talking over each other. Mike finally exited his car and walked to the rear bumper where Joel ad the bots were standing in a group hug. Crow was hanging onto Joel's right arm while Tom, who was 'weeping' in joy was being held under Joel's left arm in a hug.

"Joel! Joel! Joel!" Crow repeated Joel's name over and over again, trying to get his attention over Tom's dramatic sobbing. "Did you miss me?"

"Yes, Crow. Of course I missed you!" Joel admitted with a smile.

"Hey!" Tom butted in and sniffled a little. "What about me?"

"You too, Tom. I missed you both and Gypsy and Cambot and even 'Magic Voice'. I missed everyone."

Crow spoke up. "Who did you miss the most?"

"What? No one, I missed you all equally."

"Yeah, sure. But seriously, who's your favorite?"

"Crow, I don't have a favorite. We've discussed this before."

"But I don't believe you and I never will! Answer the question!" He was clinging onto Joel's arm and was pulling himself up closer to Joel's face.

Mike casually leaned against the trunk of his car and watched the joyous reunion in respectful silence, glad that the bots were hanging onto Joel instead of himself. Joel finally took notice of Mike and extended his hand, with Crow hanging on for the ride, to Mike.

"Mike, good to see you again. You're looking well, you still have a nice jumpsuit, too."

Mike accepted the gesture. "Likewise." He took note of Joel's red jumpsuit. "Nice to know that level of energy from the bots isn't exclusive to me."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Joel managed to shake Crow loose from his arm, causing Crow to fall to the ground with a 'thud'. "I always had to hide the candy when we were in space."

"Same." Mike watched as Crow climbed up Joel's leg and clung onto his waist. "But it didn't seem to make a difference."

Tom spoke up. "You cannot stop us Mike! We are immortal!" He laughed manically for a moment. "Right Joel?"

Joel laughed a little. "Sure, something like that." He returned his attention to Mike. "So, what've you guys been up to?"

"Joel! Joel! Joel!" Crow continued his childlike rambling. "You know what happened after you left the Satellite of Love?"

"No, what?"

"Mike broke the Hubble Telescope!"

"Yeah!" Tom piped up. "And he blew up three, count 'em, THREE planets!"

Joel couldn't believe what he was hearing, in fact he didn't. "Really Mike?"

"It's... It's a long story, Joel... And, it was ALL an ACCIDENT."

Tom continued on. "He stood trial and everything!"

"Yeah..." Crow added. "He only got community service though. What a rip-off!"

"Hey Crow, remember when Mike tried to grow a mustache?"

"Oh yeah!"

The two bots giggled evilly at the odd memory. "Wait, wait, Servo?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember when Mike tried river dancing?"

"What a joke! Ooh, what about the time we thought he had rabies?"

"Classic! Or the giant spider web!"

The mischievous robotic duo laughed together as they stumbled through some of the less flattering moments during their time with Mike aboard the S.O.L. Mike simply bowed his head in embarrassment.

Joel saw Mike's reaction and couldn't help but smile. "Seriously? They're actually telling the truth?"

"Yeah... They are. Unfortunately."

Crow spoke up again. "Joel! Joel! Joel!"

"What Crow?"

"I had the 'touch of death' and it's totally a real thing and I used it to kill Mike!"

"Yeah!" Tom confirmed. "But it's okay, Mike got better."

"Yeah, after we hauled his heavy dead carcass into the theater!"

"What about the time you turned Mike into a 'werecrow'?" Tom continued.

"Oh yeah! That was awesome!"

Joel couldn't believe what he was hearing. "A were... crow?"

Mike tried to explain. "Uh, yeah. I tripped over Crow and cut my forehead on his net, and apparently his 'essence'-"

"Ewww!" Both bots interrupted.

"Uh, anyway," Mike continued. "I was slowly turned into a 'werecrow'."

Joel didn't know how to respond. He just gave Mike a blank look.

"It's okay. I got better. Again."

"I see that."

The sound of thunder in the distance caught the reunited group's attention. Dark clouds began to build quickly and block out the sunlight. "That's weird." Mike noticed the approaching storm quickly. "I checked the weather before we left, it's so supposed to be sunny all week!"

Joel looked over his shoulder at the hauntingly empty Gizmonic Institute only a few yards away. "You guys, I think we're going to get caught in the rain."

Mike looked up and felt a few raindrops fell on his face. "I think you're right."

"Joel..." Tom saw where Joel was looking. "You're not seriously thinking of going in there, are you?!"

A second roar of thunder, closer than before, caused Tom and Crow to scream in fear and cling onto Joel even tighter! "Guys, you're crushing me!"

"Right." Mike didn't like the idea of being caught in a storm. "I vote we head into the building and wait out the rain."

"Second!" Joel agreed as he tried to pull Crow off his waist.

Mike grabbed ahold of Crow's arms and pried him loose, only to have the gilded menace turn his grip onto Mike's face and head 'face-hugger' style. "Crow! Crow buddy, I can't see!"

"Don't worry about it, just run in a straight line!"

With a firm grip Mike managed to lower Crow's arm so he could finally see beyond the robots body. Just as Mike regained his vision the clouds above opened up and quickly drenched the quartet in a freak summer shower.

"Let's go!" Joel encouraged as he made his way toward the building with Tom still under in his arm.

The long abandoned 'G' and gear shaped building looked ominous from the parking lot, but as the storm settle in overhead the structure became a menacing figure in the isolated lot of scientific madness. Even the lawn and trees were dead. It was also their only option for shelter.

While Joel fumbled with the heavy padlock on the door, Tom tried to guide Mike toward the building.

"Straight... nope, nope! You need to take a step to the right. No, your right Mike! Your other right, Mike!"

"I think I got it..." With a heavy 'thunk' the padlock gave way from its long sealed tumblers and fell free from the chains.

Mike managed to find his way to the door and pry Crow from his face. He saw the lock on the ground and watched as Joel released the chains from the door. "How'd you do that?"

Joel gave Mike a sly look. "I managed to build four robots out of parts from an experimental satellite, lock picking isn't too different."

"Oh."

The large doors swung open with an ear piercing squeak revealing a vacant lobby attached to long, winding dark hallway.

"Okay, this is bull!" Crow announced. "There is no way I'm going in there!"

A powerful roar of thunder shook the building causing both Crow and Tom to scream in fear again. "Never mind, let's move it people!"

Mike found a long dormant, dusty light switch on the wall and tried to turn on the lights. Nothing. There was no power flowing through the building. "Great. Eternal, looming darkness. My favorite."

Joel casually pulled a small red flashlight from the pocket of his jumpsuit and turned it on. The small concentrated beam of light penetrated the darkness of the lobby and into the hall, revealing many locked doors that lined both sides of the hallway.

"You keep a flashlight in your jumpsuit?" Mike noted. "Convenient plot device."

Joel laughed a little. "Nah, when I worked here the power would constantly go out thanks to all the eccentric, and as I learned the hard way, mad scientists, conducting abnormal experiments all over the building."

"Oh." Mike thought about for a moment. "And you knew we'd be going into the building?"

"No. It's just a habit from putting on the jumpsuit."

"Oh."

Outside the storm raged on, bright flashes of lightning would light up the lobby briefly causing the abandoned furniture to cast eerier shadows along the walls and down the hall. Inside the building loud, ominous groans began echoing through the building and put the group on edge. The groans were often accompanied by bizarre scratching and shuffling sounds, but the sounds never seemed to emanate from the same room twice.

As the group looked cautiously around the creepy-ass lobby, Crow caught something scurrying along the ground from the corner of his eye.

"Ahhh!" Crow screamed at the darkness as the shape disappeared and resumed clinging onto Mike's face in terror. "'The Black Scorpion'!"

Tom screamed too. "Ahh! Where?! No, not again! I can't stand it!"

"Crow..." Joel sounded just as laidback and calm as ever, despite the unusual situation. "There is no such thing as the 'black scorpion'. It's just a REALLY bad movie, remember?"

"Oh, right." Crow slowly began to relax and climb down from Mike's face, while Mike stood statuesque and unemotional waiting for the odd situation to end.

"Ahhh!" Tom screamed this time.

"What?!" Crow latched back onto Mike's face in fear again.

"Mike's dressed like Captain Janeway again!"

"Ahhhh!" Crow jumped down from Mike's face and clung onto Joel's leg instead.

Mike protested. "Hey! I'm still in my jumpsuit. You're seeing things this time."

"Wait," Joel pointed out an obvious admission in Mike's statement. "so you did, at some point, dress like Captain Janeway?"

"Well... I thought we were going to die! I panicked!"

"And when you panic... your first instinct is to dress... like Captain Janeway?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Nothing, nothing. Good reasoning." Joel looked away from Mike and toward Tom, feeling a little embarrassed for the man.

Tom spoke up. "I was a butterfly."

"I'm not surprised." Joel responded nonchalantly.

Tom looked down at Crow who was still hanging onto Joel's leg. "Is he serious?"

"I think so."

"Weird. Hey wait, if you knew I was going to turn into a butterfly, why didn't you tell me Joel?"

"I didn't think you'd believe me."

"Oh, okay then."

From the end of the hallway a small 'ding' from the elevator echoed loudly in the vacant lobby. An ominous yellow glow from the light inside the elevator car crept through the door and basked the quartet in its enigmatic aura.

"Who called the elevator?" Crow looked around the room suspiciously.

"Who called the elevator 'what'?" Tom responded.

"What?"

"What's on second! Ha!"

Joel and Mike both groaned at the overused gimmick.

"Sorry, sorry..." Tom halfheartedly apologized. "Couldn't resist."

Joel shined the flashlight down the hall again. "But seriously, who called the elevator?" He looked over at Mike who casually shrugged his shoulders.

"Dunno. I thought the power was off for the whole building, how is it working anyway?" Mike pondered.

"Back-up generator?" Joel suggested.

"For just the elevator?"

"Yeah, weird. I want to take a closer look, try to figure out what's going on."

"Uh, Joel," Tom didn't like the way Joel began walking toward the elevator. "You're not actually going to go to the elevator, are you?"

"Yeah Joel!" Crow was desperately clinging onto Joel's leg and was subsequently being dragged on the ground as Joel walked. "Are you nuts or just stupid?!"

"I just want to see what's going on, that's all."

"Mike!" Tom pleaded. "Talk some sense into him man!"

Mike began following Joel and the bots down the hall but stopped to peek curiously through the windows of the locked doors that lined the hallway. Each room was dark but Mike could make out vague shadowed objects in each room. The first room he glanced at seemed empty except for a few chairs, then out of the corner of the room a small shadow unexpectedly darted toward the door causing Mike to jump back in surprise.

"Whoa!" Mike stood back from the door and put his hand over his pounding heart. "Did you guys... see..."

Joel and the bots were standing at the end of the hallway in front of the closed elevator doors.

"Absolutely nothing." Mike finished. "Right. Of course."

The storm outside continued its fury. Heavy rain banged down on the rotting roof and seeped through the cracked walls, giving the entire building a musty smell that conjured up bad memories for both Joel and Mike.

Taking a breath Mike peeked into the room again but whatever was running around in the room had disappeared from sight. Mike resumed walking down the hall toward the elevator while glancing into each room as he passed.

One room had an old whiteboard with smudged ink and mathematical equations that he couldn't begin to understand. Another room had a broken chair with a rope wrapped around it and single light fixture hanging over head, with what looked like blood stained on the floor around it. The third room he checked had a giant glass tank with stagnant water and the skeletal remains of an impossibly huge turtle inside of it. The fourth room was white with empty coffee cups, food wrappers, bizarre graffiti and what sounded like a deranged man muttering to himself. The fifth and final room was the strangest of all, the room had a large green pipe sticking out of the ground with dozens of bizarre mushrooms laying all around it.

"Hey, Mike!" Crow yelled at the lagging man. "Stop gawking and move your big butt, will ya'?"

"Sorry." Mike stopped snooping around and hurriedly rejoined his friends. "Figure it out yet?"

"Nope." Joel pressed the call and floor buttons on the wall but nothing happened. He turned to face Mike. "Maybe there was a power surge or something."

Just then the elevator doors opened slowly without provocation. The orange light from the elevator doors covered the four in a fiery glow that seemed eerily reminiscent of the fires of Hell.

"Spooky..." Crow commented. "I'm not going in there."

"Me neither." Tom agreed. "Send in the canary first."

"Where are we going to get a canary?" Mike questioned.

"By canary I mean human, and by human I meant you, Mike."

"Oh, well, that's- Hey!"

"Okay, that's enough. I'll go in." Joel volunteered, clicking off his flashlight and placing it back in his jumpsuit. As he stepped into the opened elevator Crow finally let go of Joel's leg and Tom broke free from Joel's arm, hovering back over to Mike for safety.

Tom landed in Mike's arms and promptly apologized for his earlier comment. "Hey, you know that whole 'canary thing' was just a joke... Right Mike? Buddy?"

Mike ignored the bot and focused on Joel. "Well? What's going on in there Joel?"

"Nothing. Looks like a normal elevator to me."

"Think there's anything worth checking out on the other floors?"

"I'm not sure. But I bet I could find some usable parts to upgrade the bots' systems."

"Upgrade?!" Tom and Crow looked at each other confused.

"Don't you like us just like this, Joel?" Tom asked sadly.

"Yeah, you giant wiener! You programmed us! Don't change it now!"

"I'm not going to change-" Joel was cut short when Mike, Tom and Crow suddenly fell forward into the elevator. The trio knocked Joel to the ground and fell across the former Gizmocrat in a makeshift dog pile.

"Hey!" Joel complained. "What gives?" He tried to sit up but the weight of his companions kept him pinned to the ground.

Without warning the elevator doors shut, trapping the four inside the enigmatic elevator car. The elevator automatically began to descend into the basement of Gizmonic Institute.

"It wasn't us Joel!" Crow blurted as he untangled his gangly limbs from the pile of bodies.

"Something pushed me." Mike explained as he slowly rose to his feet, offering his hand to Joel in the process.

"What pushed you?"

"I... I don't know." Mike's face paled as he remembered that the building was supposed to be vacant. "But I know something pushed me! I felt it!"

Crow cowardly clung onto Joel's leg while Tom hovered back up into Mike's arms. "Hold me close Mike!" Tom sounded genuinely afraid. "I'm scared!"

As the elevator continued its descent into the basement the four unwilling occupants watched the floor numbers climb. 'B8, B9, B10,'

"How many basements does this building have?" Mike asked as he turned to look at Joel.

"Our lucky number..." Joel watched as the basement number finally settled on 'B13' and elevator came to a halt.

The doors opened automatically and a bright white light with noxious gas billowed into the elevator car, blinding the four surprised riders.

"Where... where are we?" Joel asked aloud between coughs as he held up a hand to shield his eyes.

"Ah, welcome back." A familiar voice outside the elevator answered.

One by one Mike, Tom, Crow and Joel fell helplessly to the floor of the elevator.

"Nice to see you again, 'boobie'!" Were the last words Joel heard before slipping into the blissful state of unconsciousness.

"...Football practice!" The first thing Mike had become aware of as he regained consciousness was the vice like pain and pressure in his head as he tried to sit up in a rush. He slowly opened his blue eyes and attempted to find his bearings, only to see that he was no longer in the elevator.

Instead he was now strapped onto a large metal table bolted upright to a wall in a bleak, dark basement. It seemed hauntingly familiar...

There was a unnecessarily huge metal, circular vault-like door adjacent to the elevator. It seemed like the only doorway in or out of the mysterious room. All along the dark cavernous walls were lined with coils, beakers, tubes, bizarre machines, wires, cables, large cylindrical tanks full of green liquid and a second large metallic table bolted horizontally to the floor. Laying on the table, also strapped down and seemingly asleep, was a familiar face in a red jumpsuit.

"Joel?" Mike called to his companion, softly at first to keep the pain in his head from increasing but soon spoke louder as to rouse the still unconscious man. "Joel!"

"I had Jell-O today..." From the table Joel slowly began waking up. He lifted his groggy head and glanced about the room until he noticed Mike strapped to a table on the wall across from himself. "Mike? Hey, what's going on?"

"I don't know." He winced in pain. "Man, my head's killing me! It feels like I have my head caught in a vice!"

"Well, I bet that large wood vice strapped to your skull isn't helping things."

"What?" Mike tried to reach the top of his head but his arms were bound too tightly to the table. Instead he tried to look up at the device but only succeeded in bumping the vice against the table causing his head to throb in pain. "Ow!"

Joel pulled at the leather straps that bound his wrists and ankles to the table but the restrains wouldn't give. "Hey, wait! Where're the bots? Where's Tom Servo? Where's Crow?!" He frantically began looking around the room seeking out his missing friends.

"Over here, Joel." Tom called out flatly.

"Servo?" Joel looked around the room confused with Mike doing the same.

"Look up!" Tom called again.

Joel and Mike focused their attention on the middle of the stone ceiling and saw Tom essentially glued in place to the ceiling in an unusual, yet somehow familiar, green resin. "Da' hell? Servo!" Joel breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you hurt? How'd you get up there, buddy?"

"No clue. How'd you guys get strapped to those tables?"

"Uh... No clue." Joel mimicked Tom's response in a flat tone of his own.

"Good questions, though." Mike added. "Well, that's one. Where's Crow?"

As the trio continued to look around the room for their remaining friend the large metal door began creaking open at an ominous pace with an ear piercing creak.

"Geez!" Tom complained. "Get some WD-40 for that thing! Or at the least plug my ears for me, Would ya'?"

Joel calmly reminded Servo, "You don't have any ears."

"Quiet you candy spewing globe!" The familiar voiced man blurted as he stepped into the room and stood in the shadows watching his helpless captives.

"That voice..." Tom shuddered in fear.

"No..." Mike quickly recognized the voice too. "That's not possible!"

Joel having been the first to recognize the voice before falling unconscious was also the first to find the courage to address the man. "Doctor Forrester?"

"Yes, my dear little space monkey. It is I, the great Doctor Clayton Forrester." He stepped into the light, with his arms folded behind his back, and stood over Joel. "Thought you could escape me, eh? Ha! Not even in your wildest of fever dreams you sleepy-eyed buffoon!"

"Wait!" Mike called out to Dr. Forrester in confusion. "But, how is this possible? You died!"

"Correction you naïve Neanderthal." He arrogantly stepped away from Joel and stood over Mike's table next. "My body died yet my brilliant mind and sexy consciousness continued to live on through my greatest invention." He snapped his fingers and the room lit up in bright white light while a large industrial computer in the corner hummed to life.

Joel noticed the computer and the wide assortment of unidentifiable attachments added to its exterior. "You transferred your consciousness into a computer?"

"Of course not!" Dr. Forrester snorted as he marched back toward Joel in a huff. "This isn't science fiction, this is real life! I transferred my memories into my newly cloned body and put the clone in suspended animation for 20 years. Duh!"

"Oh, sorry." Joel sarcastically apologized. "Then what's with the computer?"

"So I can conveniently shop online. It also doubles as my 'weather dominator'!"

"Oh. Where's Crow 'Commander Cobra'?" Joel asked as catty as possible.

"That smartass piece of junk is safe. For now." Dr. Forrester responded coldly.

Mike didn't like the way Dr. Forrester sounded. "Where's Crow?"

"Safe." He repeated flatly to his blonde captive.

From above Tom joined in. "Where's Crow?"

"SAFE." The mad doctor was losing his patience.

The three captives repeated the question in unison. "Where's Crow?" With Tom adding, "Dickweed!"

"Shut up! Don't worry about it! Worry about yourselves!" Dr. Forrester walked toward a very large red button mounted on the wall next to the only door. "See this button?"

Joel and Mike nodded, with Mike flinching at the shifting of the vice still attached to his head.

"Good. This great big button that must never, ever be pressed, will be pressed when it's time for the experiment to finally come to its glorious end."

"Experiment?" Joel felt nauseous just saying the word.

"That's right 'bot-boy', experiment. This is the experiment that will finally allow me to take over the world!" He grinned evilly and looked back and forth between Joel and Mike. "And you two are going to help me bring the experiment to fruition! Feel honored." He crossed his arms and stared at his captives. "Well go ahead, start feeling honored."

Joel and Mike gave each other and odd look before Mike finally responded to the bizarre offer. "Okay, yeah, sure. We're honored."

"Truly honored." Added Joel.

From the ceiling Tom chimed in. "Yeah, so why don't you go ahead and jump into my honorable butt?"

Dr. Forrester sneered at Tom's comment. "You, my little crimson bubble, will be the first to die!"

"Oh, good." Tom chuckled a little. "I hate long waits."

"Meh!" Dr. Forrester simply waved off Tom's comment. "This experiment my captive audience is not a single bad movie; no, no, no, NO! That simply won't do anymore! This experiment is a compilation of every bad movie and their absolute worst scenes your puny brains have ever been subjected to."

"All of them?" Asked Mike worriedly.

"Yes, my little guinea pig. ALL of them! From 'The Crawling Eye' to 'Diabolik'." He opened his arms in a dramatic fashion as he expressed his menacing glee for the torment he was about to inflict. "And YOU Joel, you will suffer most of all."

"How's that?"

"After the movie, I'm going to tear apart your mechanical friends; bit by bit, bolt by bolt, and you will be forced to watch!" With a twisted grin plastered to his mustachioed face, Dr. Forrester headed toward the door. "See you in an hour. That is, your final hour! Mwa ha ha ha ha..." Standing in the doorway he gave his captives one last sinister look. "I'm the God, I'M THE GOD!" He stepped through and slammed the door shut behind him as he left. The heavy metal tumblers in the door locked tight and echoed through the room.

The room was silent for only a moment before Tom made another comment. "What a jackass!"

Mike tried again to free his arms but the restraints were too tight. "Hey, Joel?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think he really has a 'weather dominator'?"

"Probably. I don't know what one would look like, so I can't argue against it."

"Oh. Hey, what's that guys deal with you anyway? What did you do to him?"

"I don't know. I just cleaned up the place, but I guess my bosses didn't like me so they shot me into space."

"That seems a little extreme, doesn't it?"

"Depends on your definition of 'extreme'."

"Anything involving abduction, rockets or plots for world domination IS my definition of extreme!"

From the ceiling Tom was growing impatient with the lack of action below. "Will you two shut it and figure out how we're going to escape?!"

"Right." Joel agreed with Tom. "We need to get these restraints off."

"And find Crow." Mike added. "And maybe some aspirin."

From the poorly lit corner in the back of the room a familiar figure suddenly stepped into the light with a magazine in its grip. "Will you guys stop whining, I'm trying to read!"

"Crow?!" Tom yelled at his robotic friend. "Where've you been?!"

"I've been here literally the whole time you guys have." He dropped the magazine, a 1992 issue of 'TigerBot' and walked over to Mike. "Nice hat."

"Very funny Crow." Mike scowled. "Get this thing off my head, will ya?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"You're too tall. I've mentioned this before, Mike."

"Then untie my hands!"

"No, you're grouchy."

Joel and Tom yelled at the golden robot. "Crow!"

Tom continued on. "Would you just get on with it? I'm getting dizzy up here!"

"What? Oh, sorry. Hold on Joel." Crow walked over to Joel and began biting at the soft leather restraint on Joel's left wrist. "Kinky." Crow commented between bites.

The aged leather slowly broke away until Joel had enough give to pull his hand free from the restraint. "Got it!" Reaching over to his opposite hand Joel unfastened the second restraint before finally releasing his ankles from the table. "Hang on, Mike. I'll get you free in a second."

"What about me?!" Tom whined.

"After Mike's free, he'll get you down." Joel reassured.

"Hurry!" Crow urged his human companion as Joel crossed the room. "I'm sure 'Doctor Dink' will be back any second now."

"Why's that?" Joel asked while proceeding to remove the vice from Mike's head, much to Mike's relief.

"I sort of escaped from the other room... and I sort of broke everything in the room on my way out. Sort of... on purpose... for fun."

"Why did you break everything in the other room before leaving, Crow?" Joel asked calmly yet emphatically as he finished removing the restraints from Mike's wrists and ankles on the table.

"Because Dr. Forrester is a smelly jerk and I don't like him!"

"Yeah!" Tom agreed with Crow.

"...but now he's going to be really mad because you escaped and destroyed the room!" Joel stood back as Mike climbed down from his table.

"Yeah!" Tom then agreed with Joel.

"Hey, I had to get out of there! My life was at stake!"

"What?!" Tom Servo, still secured to the ceiling, called Crow out on his suspicious claim. "ALL our lives are at stake you ninny!"

"Yeah, but I was really in danger!"

"Sure you were Crow..." Tom responded flatly as Mike proceeded to climb up on the opposite table to free Tom from his resin prison on the ceiling.

"I was!" Crow defended himself.

"Okay, okay. Let's just be calm." Joel played the role of peacemaker and father very well. "Crow, tell us exactly what happened to you."

"Oh, well, it was a clear and starry night and I awoke to the sound of rhythmic beeping as I opened my eyes for the first time on the Satellite-"

"No, Crow..." Joel stopped him. "I mean tell us what happened to you after we were pushed in the elevator."

"Oh, well, I woke up alone and hanging by a chain over a large tank of acid."

Mike had freed Tom from the resin and was now standing next to Joel with Tom in his arms. "And?"

"And..." Crow continued. "I wriggled loose from the chain and grabbed onto the side of the tank, then climbed down to the floor and tore apart the room trying to find the door. I had to get away from-"

Joel was still confused and stopped Crow from rambling on by asking the obvious question. "Okay, but how did you get from that room into this room?"

"Oh! I crawled through the air duct. Duh!"

"That's it?" Mike asked flatly.

"That's it. And I found a body in the vent. Can I keep it?"

"Eww! No! And no you didn't!" Tom never took Crow at his word and was revolted by the implication of keeping a corpse!

"Did too! See?" Crow held out his claw and displayed a nametag that he had ripped from the body's jumpsuit.

Mike took the nametag and read it aloud. "'Dr. Laurence Erhardt'. Never head of him."

Joel, Crow and Tom let out a collective, "Oohhhhh!"

"'Oh', what?" Mike questioned his companions' reactions.

"Well," Joel answered calmly. "'Larry' was Dr. Forrester's first assistant. He mysteriously disappeared after about a year and Frank took his place."

"Oookaaay..." Mike was having a hard time contemplating Joel's laidback demeanor. "Crow escaped one room, found a dead body, we're all still trapped with a mad scientist plotting revenge against us, and you're just so... reserved about it."

"Yeah." Joel admitted feeling a little embarrassed. "Guess I'm just used to being threatened and experimented on."

"That's kind of sad..."

Tom had enough of the idle chit-chat. "Will you two stop chatting and find a way out?! We're going to be tortured, mutilated and killed! If we don't escape soon we're ALL GOING TO DIE! Game over man, GAME OVER!" He was shaking violently in Mike's arms.

"It'll be okay, Servo." Joel reassured the trembling robot. "You survived 'The Castle of Fu-Manchu' and that was BAD. I know you can handle this, too, we won't let you down!"

"He's right." Mike agreed. "We'll get out of here. All five of us."

"Right, all... Five?" Joel quickly did the math in his head. "Whose the fifth person, Mike?"

"What?" Mike scanned the room again and took a head count. "There's Crow, Tom, you, me and... Crow? Again!?"

Joel, Mike, Crow and Tom turned their attention to the 'second Crow' standing nearby. His dark, silver color scheme was eerily familiar.

"That's... not Crow." Joel stated the obvious before revealing the extra bot's identity. "That's Timmy!"

"Oh yeah..." Crow responded sheepishly. "Did I not mention Timmy was here? Yeah, he's the reason I destroyed that room while escaping. I think he's a little cheesed at me..."

"Timmy?" Mike was thoroughly confused. "Who's Timmy?"

"Timmy," Crow answered again. "was my friend who happens to be a dark specter that I welcomed aboard the Satellite of Love."

"Okay, and why is... Timmy... here?"

"Ask Joel!" Crow looked up at his creator mischievously.

"Uh, I... used a broom and threw Timmy out an airlock after he tried to kill us. He ended up here and I guess he's still a little upset."

Timmy opened his beak to reveal the secondary, drooling beak contained within as he hissed angrily at the four captives.

"Oh." Mike noticed Timmy's size and had a realization. "Timmy must've been the shadow running around in the lobby and I bet he's the thing that pushed me into the elevator!"

Crow butted in. "Uh-oh. He must be working with Dr. Forrester..."

"You think?!" Tom was losing his cool again. "Why didn't you tell us he was here as soon as you found us?!"

"I told you my life was at stake!"

"I thought you were talking about the acid tank!"

"I was going to mention Timmy until Joel interrupted me and I lost my train of thought!"

"Why you..."

Timmy silently focused his attention on both Mike and Tom. With his mouth opened a small trail of (impossibly thick) drool began oozing down his face.

"Uh, Joel..." Mike took a step back from Timmy and held Tom tighter. "Ideas?"

"Just one." Joel followed Mike's lead after pulling Crow back away from Timmy as he stepped back.

"Let me hear it."

"Run!"

The imprisoned quartet screamed out in fear and panic as they began darting around the room, desperately trying to get away from Timmy and find an escape route.

Mike grabbed ahold of the large door and began trying to pull it open, but it wouldn't budge. "Need a little... help here!"

Joel made his way over to the door and proceeded to pull at the door as well. The two men combined their strength in an attempt to regain their freedom while Tom and Crow began frantically trying to distract Timmy from Joel and Mike.

As the robotic chaos ensued Joel attempted to break the lock on the door. Mike looked around the room for a tool they could use to break down the door. On the far wall he spied a large locked cabinet, one used to store weapons. "Joel, I have an idea!"

Mike jogged toward the cabinet with Joel close behind. Fortunately the cabinet wasn't locked and was full of bizarre objects of varying uses. "Here!" Mike took hold of a large hammer and handed a second to Joel. "Take this clown hammer and follow me!"

"Uh, why not use an actual hammer?"

The sound of small but powerful engine turning itself over caught Joel and Mike's attention. They turned toward the sound in time to see Timmy chasing after Crow and Tom with a forklift, only to crash into the cavern-like wall just as quickly as the pursuit began.

Crow and Tom made their way back to their human companions. "He tried to kill us with a forklift!"

Smoke from the smoldering forklift filled the room with an acrid fog that caused Joel and Mike to cough uncomfortably. While they were distracted someone snatched the clown hammers from their hands and proceeded to hit Joel and Mike over the head. Rendered unconscious the two humans fell to the floor in a heap beneath the smoke.

"Well, well, well... What have we got here?"

Crow and Tom recognized Dr. Forrester's voice and looked up at him through the smoke. He was standing over Joel and Mike with the oversized clown hammer in his hands and a gasmask over his face.

"Uh..." Tom looked over at Crow. "Run?"

"Oh, let's!"

"AAAAAhhhhhhh!" The robotic duo let out a scream of terror before bolting across the room away from the mad scientist.

"Run Crow, run! Run like the wind! " Tom Servo called out to his gilded companion as he managed to dodge Dr. Forrester's grab and rise up high to the ceiling safely out of reach.

"I'm running as fast as I can!"

During the sporadic pursuit several items in the lab were strewn about creating a huge mess in the process, leaving a trail of carnage and path of obstacles in his wake. Crow ducked inconspicuously down beneath the table and watched as Tom continued to hover up high just out of Dr. Forrester's reach.

"Come here you little..." Dr. Forrester was frantically jumping up and down trying to grab onto the red bot, but to no avail. Choosing an alternative method of catching the elusive bot he grabbed ahold of the oversized clown hammer and snickered evilly at the floating robot. "Tell me my floating nuisance, are you familiar with the game 'wac-a-mole'?"

"Aah!" Tom didn't like the look of the hammer. "I prefer skee-ball!"

Looking around for an escape route Crow spotted the air duct on the far wall that he had initially used to enter the room. "Servo!" He called out to his cornered companion as he quickly made his way back to the air duct.

"What?!" Tom continued to position himself just far enough from the mad scientist's grip and violent hammer swings. "I'm a little busy here!"

"Come with me if you want to live!"

"I want to live! I want to live!" Tom swiftly dropped down from the ceiling onto Dr. Forrester's head with surprising force! "HI-KEEBAH!" Luckily for the bot the impact was enough to knock the crazed scientist onto the floor. The clown hammer fell from his grip and his glasses flew off his face during the fall.

"Let's go!" Crow crawled into the duct with Tom following close behind.

Dr. Forrester sat up from the floor, retrieved his glasses and watched as the two robots disappeared into the vent out of sight. "No! Get back here! I command you!" He got back to his feet, bolted for the vent and stuck his hand into vent trying to get ahold of the escaping robots. "Oww!" He suddenly retracted his grip and looked at the bleeding wound on the side of his hand. "You bit me!"

"Yeah, well, you were trying to kill us!" Crow defended bluntly.

"That's no reason to bite!"

"Fffffttt!" Crow made a 'fart' noise at Dr. Forrester, which resulted in the two robots giggling mischievously while Dr. Forrester just sighed with disappointment.

"Oh, real mature!" He commented flatly while checking the bite mark left on his hand. "I thought with Joel raising you, you two would've turned out better!"

"Yeah, go figure." Tom responded casually. "Blame it on Mike!"

"Yeah, we do!" Crow added.

On that note Dr. Forrester smiled wickedly to himself. "Mike... Mike Nelson." He turned his attention back to the two unconscious men laying on the floor across the room. "And Joel Robison..."

"Uh-oh..." Tom heard the diabolical glee in the mad scientist's tone. "That's not good."

"Timmy!" Dr. Forrester called for the damaged, buried robot. "Timmy! Would you stop playing around and get over here?"

From beneath the smoking wreckage pile of the crashed forklift Timmy slowly emerged. Smoke was billowing off his body, his net and beak were charred black and one of his eyes was now missing.

"There you are. Into the vent! I want those two robots brought back here: dead or alive!"

"Alive! Alive!" Tom yelled out.

"No! You'll never take us alive! Ha ha!" Crow countered.

"Crow?!"

Dr. Forrester grabbed Timmy and crammed the smoldering evil robot doppelganger into the duct. "Now go! Rise, rise my son!"

"Aaahhh!" From inside the vent Tom and Crow let out a collective scream of terror as Timmy began chasing them through the air duct and deep into the ventilation system.

With the bots being handled by Timmy, Dr. Forrester arrogantly strolled over to where Joel and Mike were still laying on the ground. "Now, let's get the experiment underway, shall we?" From the pocket of his bright green lab coat, he pulled out of a roll of gray duct tape. "And this time," he ripped a long strip of tape loose from the roll, "you will NOT escape!"

Mike slowly began to regain consciousness. He lifted his head from the ground and looked up at Dr. Forrester standing ominously over himself and Joel. "What the...?"

"Quiet you!" Dr. Forrester put the strip of tape over Mike's mouth and used the nearby large clown hammer to strike Mike over his head.

With that blow to the head Mike fell back onto the floor helplessly unconscious. Again.

"Now..." Dr. Forrester continued standing menacingly over the jumpsuited duo. "Where was I?"

Crow and Tom were growing weary of crawling through the vents. They were lost in the dark depths of the labyrinthine ventilation system. Taking a pause at a four way intersection in the duct work, the duo stood idle while trying to figure out their next move.

"Now what do we do?" Tom asked impatiently.

"How should I know?"

"Well, you found your way from one room to another using these vents, so you find us a way out!"

"Hey, that was luck Servo. If I found a way out of the building before I found you guys I would've been long gone ages ago!"

"Oh thanks Crow, thanks for being so loyal to your friends." He pushed his way his way past Crow. "And stop breathing down the back of my neck!"

"I'm not breathing down your neck. I'm standing next to you!"

"Huh?" Tom turned his head to see Timmy's one remaining eye glaring at him. "Uh, Crow...?"

"Let me guess; Timmy's right behind us."

He looked at Crow. "Yup."

"Is he glaring at us menacingly?"

He looked back at Timmy. "That's affirmative." He turned back to face Crow.

"Is he snarling at us with his second mouth?"

"Uh..." As Tom turned to look at back for the third time Timmy opened his mouth to reveal the second mouth drooling within. "Ten-four good buddy. Want to run screaming for our lives?"

"Let's do it."

"AAAAAAAHHHH!" The robotic duo shouted in terrified unison as they split up, darting off in opposite directions in the vents.

Timmy looked down one vent, then the other before deciding he'd take the middle route.

The chase continued.

Dr. Forrester had taken the liberty of binding his two 'guests' to a very large, moth-eaten couch with the large roll of duct tape. Displayed in front of the reluctant duo was a projection screen that was large enough to completely cover the far wall in white polyester.

Joel began to rouse from his state of unconsciousness, the distinct smell of plastic and rubber burned at his sense of smell. His head was pounding with a massive ache thanks to Dr. Forrester's hammer attack. He tried to move his hands to his face but quickly discovered that they were immobilized by the duct tape pinning his arms to his sides. To his left on the couch was Mike, also bound in a duct tape cocoon and still unconscious.

The thing that caught Joel's immediate attention was the strange metallic device attached to Mike's head. Small prongs jutting out from the enigmatic device were being used to hold Mike's eyelids open, giving the helpless man a haunting deadeye stare into nothingness.

"Mike? Mike!" Joel tried to awaken his fellow captive but Mike was really out of it after receiving two blows to the head. Unable to move his arms Joel decided to lean over and bump his shoulder into Mike's to try to get his attention. "Wake up!"

Slowly Mike came to his senses, his bloodshot forcefully opened blue eyes darted back and forth while he tried to regain his bearings.

"Mike? Are you alright?" Joel was glad to see Mike beginning to move.

"No! I keep getting hit on the head! And now there's something wrong with my eyes! How about you?"

"Everything's all hot and it hurts and stuff, but I think I'll live."

"What's wrong with my eyes Joel?" He turned his head to look at Joel, which of course made him cringe in response to the unintentional bug-eyed stare.

"Uh..." Joel was unsure of how to tell Mike about the foreign device now attached to his head. "Did you ever see 'A Clockwork Orange'?"

"Once, when I was in high-" He took a deep breath and sighed irritatingly as a certain scene from the movie flashed in his mind. "Seriously? Where did he get this thing? And why is it on my head?"

"Because it fits." Dr. Forrester walked in front of the duo with a sick smile on his face and a large movie reel in his hands. "It's a custom made piece that I bought from eBay about two years ago and I finally had a reason to use it. Lucky for me your giant head works well enough to wear it."

"Hey!" Joel didn't like see Mike in pain. "Come on now, that thing almost blinded McDowell during filming! How's Mike supposed to see the movie if he's blind?" Joel used his vast array movie trivia to try and convince Dr. Forrester to free Mike of the device.

"Hm, good point my cinematic savant." Taking great pleasure in the pain he had inflicted on Mike, Dr. Forrestor placed the movie reel on the floor and slowly removed the contraption from Mike's skull, knowing it would cause further discomfort. "There!" He tossed the device casually over his shoulder and retrieved the movie reel from the floor holding it to his chest like a beloved family heirloom. "Better?"

"No!" Mike blinked hard several times trying to clear his vision and soothe the burning of his dried eyes. "Dickweed!"

"Hey!" Joel realized the bots were gone. "Where's Crow and Tom Servo?"

Dr. Forrester grumbled impatiently under his breath. "Those two meddlesome mechanisms have taken refuge in the ventilation system, but don't worry, Timmy will flush them out soon enough. We wouldn't want them missing the big movie premiere, now would we?" He began gleefully playing the reel in an antiquated film projector and began humming the lyrics from the song 'Bye Bye Bye' to himself.

On the ceiling, above the couch where Joel and Mike were bound, was an opened air vent and Tom had been listening to the situation below the whole time. "That dirty bastard!" He looked back at the ductwork he had climbed through during his run from Timmy. "I gotta get them out of there. But I need Crow!"

Retracing his steps in the vents Tom began calling out, quietly, for his missing friend. "Crow?" No reply. "Crow? CROW!?" Sighing Tom tried an alternate name. "'Drake Tungsten'?"

"Yo!"

"Gahhh!" Tom turned around in complete surprise to see Crow innocently standing behind him. "Where'd you come from?"

"Same as you. The Satellite of-."

"No, I mean where were you while I was calling for you?"

"Hanging out with Larry. There's not a whole lot of room in these vents you know."

"Look, we need to get Joel and Mike out there, FAST!" Tom made his way back to the opened vent with Crow following. "'Doctor Dingus' has them trapped!"

"Right. What can we do?" Crow peeked through the vent at Joel and Mike below.

"I don't know. But we need to do something fast."

"Right. Something..."

"Fast."

"Right."

"Right." There was a brief moment of awkward silence. "Got any ideas, yet?"

"No. Wait! Yes!" Crow used his claws to grip onto the bars of the vent and pushed against the covering with all his strength.

"Crow! What are you doing?!"

"Something!" After grabbing ahold of Tom's inoperative hand with one claw and with one last heave with the other claw, the vent gave way. "For glory!" The two bots went tumbling wildly out of the vent, landing uncomfortably on Joel and Mike's laps.

"Whoa!" Joel was surprised by the bots unexpected return.

"What the hell?" Mike responded bluntly. "Where'd you guys-"

"Look out!" Joel cautioned as Dr. Forrester turned his attention from the projector and over to the bots.

"You!" Dr. Forrester pointed at them angrily. "Get your hinders over here or I will destroy you!"

"Never!" Tom yelled out triumphantly as he proceeded to hover away from the crazed scientist, starting the mad dash for safety all over again. Fortunately for Joel and Mike Dr. Forrester solely focused his attention on Tom and away from Crow.

Sitting up, Crow noticed Mike's irritated eyes. "Mike, were you crying?"

"No! I was tortured!"

"And then you cried?"

"No! I didn't cry. Tell him Joel!"

"He was tortured. Now, can you help us out Crow?"

"Yeah, sure. Crybaby..." Crow began the painstaking process of biting through the resilient duct tape that held Joel and Mike prisoner on the couch. "Blagh!" Crow spit the sticky resin bits from his beak, but they stuck to his chin. "Tastes terrible, almost like Mike's cooking!"

"I least I try to cook!"

"Try harder!"

"You don't even have taste buds." Joel pointed out.

"No," Crow continued to comment between small bites. "but I do have an imagination."

"A dirty one." Mike tagged on.

"So?"

Without warning Timmy dove down from the vent and landed on top of Crow, knocking his golden counterpart off the couch onto the floor with a hard 'thud'.

"Crow?!" Joel called after his stunned friend who was laying at his feet.

"You alright?" Mike pulled his legs back away from the beginning scuffle.

"What do you think?!" Crow snapped. "I was hit on the head! By me!"

Joel watched the two robots size each other up. "Can you still take him?"

"I don't know!" Crow and Timmy began pushing each other back forth by the shoulders. When Timmy opened his beak and revealed the secondary drooling mouth contained within once more, and chomped at Crow. Crow changed his answer. "No! Quick, find a broom!"

Crow struggled valiantly to keep Timmy from biting at his face and neck while Joel and Mike fruitlessly tried to free themselves from their resilient duct tape cocoons on the couch. Neither man could get up or aid Crow in any way possible, they could only watch.

"Joel, Mike!" Crow looked to his human friends for assistance. "HELP!"

"We're trying Crow!" Joel answered feeling helpless. "But we can't get free!"

Dr. Forrester giddily returned from the other side of the room and stood at the edge of the couch with a sickly satisfied grin on his face. Slung over his shoulder was a large butterflynet and ensnared in the netting, upside down, was Tom Servo.

"Servo!" Joel spotted the captured bot. "What happened?"

"Well," Tom explained flatly. "as it turns out being a butterfly, though temporarily, has made me very vulnerable to oversized butterflynets. And I can't get out. How're you guys doing?"

Mike stopped trying to wriggle free of the duct tape and sighed feeling defeated. "'Bout the same. Crow?" Mike and Joel looked down at their feet where Crow and Timmy continued their mini brawl on the floor.

"Ditto." Crow was suddenly pinned down under Timmy's body against the floor. Timmy continued to snarl and bite viscously at Crow's face as Crow stretched his long arm toward Mike as he tried one final tactic to wrest free from Timmy's powerful grip. "Tag-out, man! Tag-out!"

"I can't! My arms are pinned!"

Dr. Forrester had enough of their shenanigans. "Oh, boo-hoo! Deal with it you crybaby!" He hastily dropped the net with Tom causing the ensnared robot to whimper in pain as he hit the floor.

"Yeah!" Crow agreed with Dr. Forrester.

"I was talking to you, you gilded thorn in my side..."

"Oh."

Using the remaining duct tape from the roll in his coat pocket, Dr. Forrester pulled Tom from the net and proceeded to wrap him up in the strong adhesive and finished by taping the immobilized bot to Joel's chest. "Watch it!" Both Joel and Tom complained about the awkward situation they reluctantly found themselves in.

"There! Don't go anywhere..." Dr. Forrester teased maniacally as he turned his attention to Crow and pointed at the downed bot. "You're next!"

After pulling Timmy aside Dr. Forrester used the remaining duct tape to bind Crow's arms together against his chest, then tied his ankles together and put a strip of tape over Crow's beak before finally taping his whole body to Mike's chest, like Tom. The diabolical doctor stood back to admire his fiendish work. "Cozy?"

Crow frantically shook his head back in forth negatively, his net scratching Mike's chin in the process.

"Do you find this at all pleasing?"

The four captives all shook their heads 'no'.

"Tell you what, I'm a fair man. And I'm feeling unusually generous today: The first to plead for their lives shall go free!"

Tom jumped at the offer. "Okay, save me, save me, SAVE ME! Please, I BEG OF YOU!"

"Hm... No. I don't think so." He chuckled at his own demented humor.

"You're such a jerk! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" Tom wept loudly and turned his head away in a huff to cover his face, burying it against Joel's chest.

"Good! You misery sustains me." Dr. Forrester looked down at Timmy, whose disheveled appearance made his bizarre mannerisms that much more sinister. "You've done well my unlikely ally. As reward, you will get to pull that gold delinquent apart; bit by bit, piece by piece, while his friends have no choice but to sit and watch! You can also bite Joel on the leg if there's time." Dr. Forrester walked back to the movie projector and continued setting up the film.

After hearing this deal Crow began squirming about in a frightened manner but couldn't shake the tape loose. Joel and Mike looked at each other with absolute loss.

Mike silently mouthed to Joel. 'What do we do?'

Joel silently replied. 'Don't know.'

'Any ideas? Anything at all?'

'No.' Joel shook his head in defeat and looked down. Tom, still weeping, was stuck to is chest but he could still talk, unlike Crow. 'Wait!' Joel looked back at Mike. 'Follow my lead...' He turned his focus the mad scientist just a few feet away. "Hey Dr. F? What about Mike?"

"Pardon?" He turned to look at Joel briefly before resuming his work on the film. "Oh, Mike... What about him?"

"Well, I know you're going to kill Servo first, you told us that already. And you said Timmy was going to kill Crow, then bite me on the leg."

"If there's time." Dr. Forrester corrected.

"Right, if there's time..." Joel continued on. "But what about Mike? He's been just a big a nuisance to you as we have!"

"Yeah!" Tom agreed, getting a sense of what Joel was trying to do. "Shouldn't he suffer, too?"

"Hey!" Mike was a little slow on the take, as per usual. "Are you trying to sell me out? I thought we were all friends!"

Dr. Forrester stopped fiddling with the film and approached the couch with a look of resentment in his eyes. He looked down at Mike who could only flash an awkward smile of feigned innocence at his captor. "Hm, Mike does deserve special punishment. After all, he's the one who helped YOU escape Joel! In fact, he deserves twice the punishment!"

Tom spoke up. "Like... because Mike managed to outsmart you AND your mother?"

"Exactly." Dr. Forrester grumbled in acknowledgement.

Joel chimed in. "I was told that Mike hit you in the face with a banana cream pie!"

Tom and Crow, through the tape, began laughing together at the odd memory.

"Wait, wait..." Tom had another thought, one he was sure to rile up the doctor. "Remember when we were in the year 2525?"

Crow managed to lose the tape over his beak as he poorly belted out the lyrics: "'If man's still alive!'" He cleared his throat casually and asked for Tom to follow up his statement. "What about it Servo?"

"Well, in the year 2525..."

Joel quickly butted in. "If woman can survive'..." Joel noticed everyone looking at him strangely. "What? It's a catchy song!"

"As I was saying..." Tom continued his thought. "Without even lifting a finger, Mike; this Mike... Michael J. Nelson... 'Mike the temp', 'Mike the college dropout'-"

"Mike the idiot!" Crow interrupted and added for his own benefit.

"Right, that Mike managed to DESTROY the Earth! And you, the 'brilliant, mad genius', who had planned and schemed and plotted for endless hours on end, couldn't even conquer it! What a joke!"

Dr. Forrester growled at this very notion. "You're right! This is an atrocity that mustn't go unpunished!"

"Hey!" Mike was feeling abandoned. "I didn't destroy the Earth!... Yet... And it was an accident!"

"Yeah, sure..." Joel, the bots and Dr. Forrester bantered in united doubt.

"It's the truth!" Mike tried to assure to everyone, but they didn't seem to care.

"It doesn't matter." Dr. Forrester continued on, his passion for revenge boiling over. "I will find the perfect punishment for you Mike Nelson, I just need a moment to think..." On that final note the seething scientist grabbed ahold of Timmy. "Come Timmy, we have plotting to do... To the laboratory!" And the odd duo disappeared from sight through the large door, leaving the four prisoners unguarded.

Joel waited until he heard the door latch itself shut before speaking up. "Alright, we have only one chance to escape. Let's make it count!"

"Right!" Tom cheered.

"Wait..." Mike was still confused. "You painted a target on my forehead as a distraction?"

"Yeah." Tom answered nonchalantly. "It worked. Now we just need to think of a plan of action..."

"Why did you have to paint the target so big?!"

Joel answered Mike in a calm, collected tone as was Joel's usual charm. "We needed to make sure he'd take the bait. Nothing personal Mike."

"Yeah buddy." Tom was trying to sound more upbeat. "Right Crow?"

Crow remained silent and turned his head away from Tom, his net scratching Mike's chin again as he moved.

"Crow?" Tom prodded.

Mike looked down at the bound robot taped to his chest. "Are you okay, Crow?"

"No." He finally replied. "I'm bitter..."

"You're bitter!" Mike repeated in disbelief. "What about me?"

"What about you? You just sat there and watched as my evil twin kicked my butt!"

"I couldn't help you Crow, no one could. We're STUCK."

"Yeah, sure. You could've at least kicked him or something..."

"Uh, guys," Joel interrupted the unnecessary debate. "the plan? We still need one, remember?"

The four duct tape covered captives, each a previously and currently prisoner of Dr. Clayton Forrester, sat alone in the cavernous room in uncharacteristic silence. Joel had taken the liberty of scanning over the room in attempt to utilize a possible escape using the various scientific equipment at their disposal, but the former Gizmocrat was drawing a rare blank with a constructing a creative contraption.

Tom Servo, still duct taped uncomfortably close to Joel's chest could clearly hear and feel Joel's sigh of defeat as he failed to think of a plan. "Joel? You think of anything yet?"

"No, sorry buddy. I'm at a total loss right now. You?"

"Same." Tom sighed as well. "It's a little hard to think when you're completely covered in duct tape, isn't it?"

"Yeah..." Joel tried to humor Tom. "Never thought I'd miss being trapped in space."

"I know what you mean. Living in a tiny apartment with those two would make any sane man, or machine, covet the privilege of a synchronous orbit around the Earth!"

Joel and Tom were awaiting a witty rebuttal from Mike or Crow, but surprisingly the two kept their silence.

"Hey Crow!" Tom hated it when his comments weren't acknowledged or were flat out ignored. "Did you hear me?"

Crow turned his head, his net again scratching Mike's chin, and glared silently at Tom for a moment before turning away again. Mike's chin was raw and beginning to draw blood from the repeated scratches.

"Geez, what's his problem, Joel?" Tom asked bluntly.

Joel smirked a little at the question. "He's just a little embarrassed about losing to Timmy. You know how sensitive he can be."

"I'M NOT SENSITIVE!" Crow turned back quickly to yell at Joel, his net cutting into Mike's chin causing the poor man more pain and drawing more blood.

"Oww!" Mike shook his head slightly and titled it back in an effort to keep Crow from bumping his chin again. "That hurts!"

Joel saw the small trickle of blood running down Mike's chin toward his neck. "Man, he got you pretty good. Hope you don't turn into a 'werecrow' again."

Tom started chuckling, which in turn made Crow giggle in response.

Mike just sighed at the memory. "That was a weird day." He sort of started off into space for a moment, unable to focus on the current situation.

"Something on your mind?" Joel thought Mike seemed a little distracted.

"Huh?" He looked over at Joel. "Oh, I was just trying to comprehend the fact that, between Crow and Timmy, Crow is the good twin and Timmy is evil... Didn't see that one coming."

"Yeah, I can understand how you feel. I didn't see Timmy for the evil entity that he was until after he abducted Servo and stuck him to a wall."

Crow growled a little. "The fact that Timmy attacked Cambot and kept pushing me around wasn't enough proof of his evil for you?!"

"Honestly? No." Joel replied calmly and sincerely.

"What?!"

Tom openly agreed with Joel. "Well, let's face it Crow. You can be pretty devious sometimes."

"Like when?!"

Joel remembered a prime example of Crow's deviousness. "Like the time you chased Gypsy with a knife after watching 'The Beatniks', and ended up stabbing Servo."

"Yeah, but..." Crow paused for a moment. "He got better!"

"You stabbed him, Crow."

"But-"

Tom butted back in. "You stabbed me you bastard!"

"Okay, okay..." Crow finally admitted. "I could be a little..."

"Evil?" Tom suggested.

"No."

"Demented?" Joel suggested his own term.

"No."

"Mischievous?" Mike offered.

"Yeah! That's it!"

Tom scoffed at the idea. "Right. If you stabbing me is 'mischievous', then me burning down an apartment complex is 'flirting'!"

"Hey..." Joel disliked it when the bots argued or their humor got too dark. "Come on guys, let's stop fighting and start looking for a solution. Okay?"

"We're sorry Joel..." The two bots honestly apologized in perfect unison.

As Crow turned his head to scope out the room for an idea his net scratched Mike's chin, again.

"Oww! Crow! Stop it!" Mike was trying to keep his chin away from the little bot but had little room to move away.

"What?" Crow looked up at Mike and saw the small trail of blood coming from his chin. "Oh, sorry. But it's not my fault you have a giant, square jaw. And head."

It was at this moment Joel had his own idea. "Wait a minute! Crow, do you think you could use your net to cut through the tape?"

"Yeah!" Tom was getting excited. "That's a great idea! Come on Crow, do it!"

"Umm..." Crow was trying to figure out a way to use his net but was unsure of how to proceed thanks to his limited mobility. "Maybe?"

"Good." Joel encouraged. "Try leaning to your side and cut at the tape on my arm."

"Okay, I'll try." Crow leaned over as far as he could, but his was body was too light to put up any resistance against the strong duct tape. "I can't reach!"

Unwilling to give up on their only idea for possible escape Mike also leaned his body over as much as possible in an effort to push Crow closer to Joel.

"Little more Mike, I can almost reach it!"

Mike planted his feet on the floor and used his strong legs to give his body further leverage and resistance to the tape. "Try now!"

Crow leaned his head over and felt his net make contact with the tape on Joel's arm. "Aha! Success!" Turning his head back and forth quickly the sharp edge of he net began gradually sawing its way through the constricting wrap of duct tape.

"Keep going Crow!" Tom encouraged. "We believe in you!"

As the duct tape began breaking, layer by layer, Joel twisted and flexed his arm in attempt to free his trapped limb from its gray adhesive prison. "A little more Crow, I can almost get my hand free!"

Without missing a beat Crow continued cutting through the duct tape and didn't stop until he felt his net brush against the fabric of the jumpsuit covering Joel's arm. "I'm through!"

"Great work Crow!" Joel pulled his arm free of the tape and flexed his cramped hand a few times.

Mike sat back upright against the couch and let out a sigh of relief. "Nice work buddy."

Joel reached over toward Mike and began pulling the layers of duct tape away from Mike's arm. "I'm going to loosen the tape so you can get free, but we shouldn't make a move until we know what 'Doctor Doom' is going to do next."

"Right, we play it smart."

Crow looked up at Mike. "This is a first for you, isn't it?"

"Hey!" Mike complained while Joel and Tom chuckled.

"It's weird," Crow continued. "I never noticed before but, Mike, you look a little like Jack Perkins."

"He does!" Tom agreed. "And he looks like Morissey! But, you know, blonde."

"And if he was bald," Crow added on humorously. "he'd look like Glen, the 'amazing colossal man'!"

Joel arched his eyebrows a little at the random comments until he noticed something uncanny about Mike's appearance as well. "You know, I hate to say this or even think it, but to me you look like Torgo..."

"Yeah, but with sexier knees!" Tom teased playfully.

"Who's Torgo?" Mike asked feeling a little attacked.

"Hey! He sounds like Mothra, too!" Tom added.

"And 'Megaweapon!'" Crow laughed loudly.

"Come on, guys..." Mike pleaded. "Can we focus on escaping, please?"

Joel laughed a little as he finished removing enough layers of tape for Mike to free his arm. "Right, good idea."

"We're sorry." Tom apologized to Mike, but quickly tagged on. "'Monkey-boy'!"

"'Monkey-boy'?" Joel asked with mild hesitation.

"Oh yeah," Crow spoke up matter-of-factly. "Mike's family is the first to start marrying primates and thus allowing a generation of highly evolved apes to roam the Earth."

"But in another 500 years or so." Tom finished.

Joel didn't believe their story but chose to not question it. "Right... How does that help us escape?"

"It doesn't!" Crow laughed. "It's just fun to mention to anyone and everyone possible!"

Mike defended himself quickly. "Well, I at least I didn't try to marry my own brother! You two tried marrying each other, remember?"

This immediately caught Joel's attention."They tried to do what?!" That was a scenario he never expected to hear about, or even consider for that matter.

"Don't worry Joel," Mike answered gently. "they never even got through the ceremony."

"Okay, good." Joel looked down at Tom. "Servo," then he looked to Crow. "Crow, you two are as close to being brothers as robotically possible! You two can NEVER marry each other, that's just a whole new level of wrong!"

Tom and Crow looked at each other awkwardly before Tom finally responded. "No worries Joel, that was just a phase anyway. Although I was a stunning bride-to-be!"

"Besides that was just for a goof, unlike the Nelson family's desire for sweet monkey love!" Crow blurted out while laughing.

"Guys! Focus!" Joel instinctively used his 'dad voice' to get their attention. "We need to escape first, then you can make fun of Mike afterward."

The heavy cast iron door, the only door in or out of the room, opened slowly. The old hinges creaked loudly in the cavernous room as Dr. Forrester walked in with Timmy loyally following at his heels. "Hello my darling little quartet. How're we feeling tonight?" He stopped in front of the couch to eyeball his victims menacingly.

Joel made sure to conceal his freed hand as he shook his head in disgust. "Like prisoners."

"No," Mike added his own opinion on the matter. "more like flies in a spider's web."

Tom put in his two cents' worth. "I was going to say baked potatoes!"

"Really?" Crow of course had to join in. "I was going to say we were like four peas in a grey, sticky, inedible pod."

"Silence!" Dr. Forrester barked angrily. "It was a rhetorical question. That's the kind of response I would expect from someone like Frank, not from you!"

"I like mom better than you!" Crow rebutted abruptly.

Joel looked at his colleagues confused before looking at Dr. Forrester for an answerr. "His 'mom'?"

"Oh, it was an experiment and the little doofus chose a homely version of a mother figure over yours truly."

"Don't say that!" Crow began freaking out against Mike's chest despite the restraining duct tape. "My mother was a saint! A saint! She was beautiful!" This time Mike managed to keep his chin away from Crow's flailing net.

Dr. Forrester rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses and bowed his head in irritation. "At any rate my reluctant guinea pigs, I have found a punishment most befitting of our dear, sweet Mike Nelson." He extended his arm toward the still opened doorway. "Won't you please join us?" He called for an unseen visitor to enter and join them.

From the couch the four captives watched as a horribly pale figure, wrapped in a purple cloak and carrying a plastic dish in his hands, walked through the door. Inside the dish was a large, green hued brain.

"No..." Mike recognized the man instantly and felt sick. "It can't be!"

"I think it is, Mike." Tom recognized the man too.

Joel saw the brain in the dish and had to ask about it. "Is he really carrying a brain?"

"Not just a brain." Tom answered. "It's his own brain! Gross, huh?"

Joel only nodded in agreement.

"Ah yes," Dr. Forrester proudly put his hand on the pale man's shoulder. "Joel, you haven't been properly introduced to this fine gentleman. This is 'Observer', but everyone just calls him 'Brain Guy'."

"Gee, I can't imagine why." Joel replied sarcastically. "What does he have to do with Mike?"

"Hm, yes. Allow me to explain. It seems that in the not-too-distant future Mike destroys this poor man's planet, AFTER destroying the Earth! It seems as though Brain Guy was never given the chance to avenge his fallen comrades or destroyed world... until now!"

"Oh."

"Yes, and speaking of now..." Dr. Forrester walked over to the movie projector and flipped a switch with a sinister laugh. The device hummed to life and lit up the projection screen with bright flickering light. "Your movie this evening is a compilation of all things horrible from every single one of the previous films in which you have been subjected. Before we begin, does anyone need to tinkle?"

The four captives shook their heads 'no'. It could've been an opportunity to escape, but none of them wanted to gamble with what could possibly lay in the deraned man's private bathroom!

"Good" Dr. Forrester continued. "Are there any questions?"

"Uh, yeah," Tom spoke up. "why are you doing this?"

"Because I can."

Crow was next. "Why didn't you get Larry's body out of the ventilation systems? That can't be sanitary!"

"So, that's where he got to! I'll have to fire my housekeeper..." Dr. Forrester looked up at the ventilation system inquisitively. "Any other questions?"

Mike shrugged a little. "Uh, did you ever sign my time card?"

"No. And stop asking!" He looked smugly to Joel. "Well, 'boobie'? What about you?"

"Yeah, I do have a question. How in the heck did you even know that the four of us would stop by Gizmonic Institute together, AND, on this day?"

Mike, Crow and Tom all looked at each quickly before loudly declaring in unison: "Yeah!"

"AND..." Joel tagged on one last detail before Dr. Forrester answered. "don't say convenient plot device, that only happens in movies! Not real life!"

"Yeah!"

Dr. Forrester crossed his arms and cleared his throat. He looked down at Timmy who was standing beside his left leg, then looked up and flashed Brain Guy, who was standing at his right, a cheesy grin. "I, uh... Well, to be honest I've been chatting with Brain Guy online for a few years now. He not only shares a mutual distain for my mother, but he too wishes to have control over the Earth. Turns out losing your home planet and being stranded with a pretentious monkey-man who evolved from Earthling mishaps can make one fall in love with the very idea of controlling the future of the Earth, and its people."

"Okay, that's great." Joel responded flatly. "But that doesn't answer my question."

"Yeah!"

"Oh, right. Well, Brain Guy's vast intellect and combined that weird monkey, uh, Professor BoBo or something, who has the history and future of Earth at his disposal, gave Brain Guy the ability to accurately predict the actions and intentions of those closest to him. Like a psychic! In other words he knew every move that would be made by-"

"Us." Joel finished. "Wow. Sounds kind of lame, to be honest!"

Brain Guy finally spoke up, he raised his finger into the air to politely gain the room's attention. "Actually, I planted GPS tracking devices on your respective vehicles and monitored your daily activity on the 'Facebook' and the 'Twitter'."

"Oh, well then that's not just lame, that's the first sign of a stalker you pastey weirdo!" Joel sounded legitimately freaked out. "Wait, I don't have a Twitter account and I never discuss my plans on Facebook, which means..." He looked over at Mike.

"Don't look at me! I deleted my accounts after Crow and Tom hacked my laptop, AND my phone!"

"Servo?" Joel looked down at the little bot next.

"My arms are inoperable, remember?"

"Which leaves..." The trio collectively looked at Crow.

"What? I'm not allowed to have a social life on the 'information-super-highway'?"

Dr. Forrester had lost his patience. "Enough! No more questions, no more stalling... It's time for the film to begin. Come with me Brain Guy, I ordered us a pizza. Timmy will keep watch over them." After threading the film into the projector he marched toward the door with Brain Guy following.

"Um, Clayton..." Brain Guy stuttered. "When do I get to inflict massive amounts of pain on the one called Mike?"

"Soon my pale friend. Soon. Once the film finishes and they are at our mercy, begging for the sweet release of death, then you can unleash your pent up fury on the blonde one. The brunette and red ones belong to me, while Timmy gets to tear apart the gold one."

The duo walked through the doorway side by side, the heavy door shut loudly behind them sealing Joel, Mike and the bots in the room.

The film began sputtering into focus. Horrid black and white images from 'The Crawling Eye' began to play on the screen, while Timmy firmly planted himself between the screen and the couch with the four prisoners. His one silver eye glaring angrily at Crow as he began guard duty.

Mike looked to Joel and spoke calmly. "Should we move now?"

"Yup. Let's go."

Joel and Mike began quickly tearing the duct tape off of Tom and Crow's bodies, allowing the two bots to roam the room freely, while they continued to remove the tape from the rest of their bodies.

Timmy quickly lunged at Crow but this time Mike saw the impending tackle and reacted to the attack by forcefully kicking Timmy, just before the homicidal robot could grab Crow. Timmy flew across the room and smashed into the projection screen, tearing the canvas down the middle as he slid down the wall onto the floor.

"Nice one Mike!" Crow complimented boldly.

"Yeah, now finish him Crow! Finish him!"

"Oh, right." Crow gathered the stray bits of duct tape strewn about the floor and used them to hogtie Timmy's arms and legs together behind his back. Timmy, unable to move, continued snarling and nipping at Crow with his two beaks.

Just as Joel and Mike were finally freed of the duct tape Tom Servo tackled the film projector. "HI-KEEBAH!" He stopped the film before it could inflict any harm to their already fragile psyches. The reel spewed the cursed film all over the floor in a pile of snaking black ribbon.

Stepping away from the couch and peeling away the remaining strips of tape from their jumpsuits, Joel and Mike exchanged glances of confusion.

"Let's make a break for it." Joel suggested, grabbing Tom and carrying him to the large door with Mike and Crow following. Joel pulled at the handle but like before, it wouldn't open. "Locked."

"What about the elevator?" Mike pressed the call button, but those doors remained shut as well. "Damn."

Joel glanced over the elevator, identifying the problem in the process. "It needs a key to be operated."

"Great. Where is it?"

"One guess."

"Doctor Forrester..." Mike rubbed at his sore chin as he pondered a solution. "Think there's a spare around here?"

"Doubt it. For once it seems Dr. Forrester has thought his plan through. I don't think he'd make an oversight like that."

Upon seeing that the group wasn't going anywhere fast, Crow walked back over to Timmy and teased the incapacitate robot for his own amusement.

Tom piped up. "Well, if you can't get the original or a spare, maybe you could make one Joel."

"Make one? How?"

"I don't know! You were always the creative one in the family; THINK!"

"It's not that simple Servo. To make my own key I'd need a copy of the master key or its spare. And if I did have the master key or its spare, there'd be no point in making my own because I could just use one of those!"

Mike had another thought. "Can you pick the lock?"

"No, it wouldn't work anyway." Joel rubbed anxiously at the back of his neck when he noticed that Crow had wandered off. "Hey Crow, get away from him. He's dangerous!"

"Not when he's tied up!" Crow quipped arrogantly, waving his claw just out of Timmy's bite range.

"That's not the point! There's already one dead body in the room, I don't want a dead robot-" Joel suddenly trailed off.

"Joel?" Tom turned to look at his creator.

"You alright?" Mike asked, carefully studying Joel's demeanor.

A sly grin came across Joel's face. "Guys, I have an idea. It's going to be a little gross, but I think it will work!"

"Let me hear it!"

"Crow, honey. I need you to go back into the vents on a little errand for me, okay?"

"An errand? Forget it!"

"Okay, how about for a mission?"

Crow just shook his head 'no' and made a fart noise.

"I'll give you the Malomar in my pocket!" He baited coyly.

"Deal!" Crow rushed over to Joel and began rummaging through the pockets on his jumpsuit until he found the delicious treat. "Let's do this, baby!"

"Did you find it?" Joel yelled up into the air vent as Crow began crawling through the labyrinthine duct work, yet again.

"Not yet!" Crow was still snacking on the Malomar as he carefully wove his way through the vents.

Mike was standing next to Joel with Tom Servo in his arms, they too were staring at the silver, dull ventilation systems awaiting Crow's return. Tom was struggling to keep his cool during the agonizing wait. "Will you hurry up!?"

"Shut up!" Crow's voice echoed loudly through the opened duct. "I'm moving as fast as I can!"

"Joel! Are you going to let him-"

Before Tom could finish his whine Joel pulled a second Malomar from his jumpsuit pocket and put it in Tom's mouth. The red bot glommed greedily on the candy in much appreciated silence.

Lightly elbowing Joel in the ribs, his focus now on the door and away from the vent, Mike asked a very logical question. "How is this going to help us escape?"

"Trust me." Joel smiled slyly as he answered. "This is going to get us out of this damn building and finally put a stop to Dr. Forrester's scheme, once and for all!"

"I trust you. I'm just worried that 'Doctor Dickweed' will come back any minute, and then we'll be right back where we started!"

Joel looked at the singular heavy door and pondered their options. "Think we could barricade the door?"

"Worth a shot!" Mike put Tom on the floor and returned to the couch. He was just relieved to be doing something instead of jut waiting. "I'll push this against the door, but I might need a little help."

"On it." Joel joined Mike at the couch, easily picking up the opposite end. The two managed to lift the beaten piece of furniture with little difficulty and carry it over to the large door.

Still laying bound on the floor, unable to free himself from the duct tape, Timmy snarled and growled at everyone in the room. Too bad for the maniacal mechanism his taunting went ignored by everyone in the room.

With the Malomar thoroughly consumed Tom returned his focus on Crow, who was still out of sight in the vent. "Hey Crow! Move it!"

"Bite me Servo!" Crow yelled back, his voice echoing slightly through the ventilation system.

"Ah, cram it you dink!"

"Up yours!"

Joel and Mike had finished propping the couch up against the door and had overheard the two bot bickering. "Hey, cut it out you two! Crow, how's it going in there?"

"Everyone just chill! This is not as easy as it looks!"

Returning his attention to the barricade, Joel focused on the immense supercomputer in the corner. "The computer?" Joel looked to Mike for help in moving the nearby large object toward the door.

"Good idea."

Working together Joel and Mike proceeded to use whatever was at their disposal to build the temporary barricade. The couch and the large supercomputer were pushed against the door, while thick cables were pulled free from the wall and tied in a tight knot around the door's handle.

Just as Joel and Mike returned to their original positions below the ventilation duct, they heard Crow call out in gleeful success. "Got it! Now all I have to-"

A loud creak of breaking metal drowned out Crow's sentence as he and a large portion of the ductwork unexpectedly broke free of the bindings in the ceiling. Crow fell to the floor of the cavernous lab, still encased in a section of the vent, with a heavy 'thud'!

Joel and Mike had instinctively shielded their eyes and faces from the falling debris and smoke during the collapse. Mike had ducked down to the floor to protect Tom from the falling metalwork in the process.

Coughing and waving away the billowing smoke, Joel looked at the twisted wreckage on the floor that had once been a piece of the ventilation system. "Crow!" He slid on his knees to the pile and began sifting though the carnage in an attempt to locate the buried robot.

Mike quickly made his way over to the pile and began digging through it right at Joel's side. "Crow? Can you hear us buddy?"

"Uh-oh..." Tom commented aloud, positioning himself between Joel and Mike. "Silence. He's NEVER silent!"

Joel uncovered an intact piece of the vent and peered inside. "Crow?"

"Present!" The gilded robot chirped as he poked his head out of the vent. "Boy, that was some ride!"

Tom appropriately scolded Crow. "Why didn't you answer us? We thought you were dead, man!"

"It's kind of hard to hear through layers of metal, especially with ringing in your ears."

"You don't have ears!"

"No, but I do have feelings!"

Mike pulled Tom away from Crow and stopped the argument before it could escalate. "So, where is it Crow?"

"What? Oh! Right!" Extending his claw Crow revealed a ring of multiple aged keys in his grip. "You were right Joel! Larry did have an extra set of keys."

"Perfect!" Mike took the keys and began checking each one, trying to identify its function. "This is going to take a while. Better get started..." Mike made his way toward the locked elevator, silently counting the keys in his hand.

Timmy continued snarling and biting at the four captives and Tom decided that he had endured enough of the deranged robots antics. He pulled a stray canister of oxygen from the many bottles, beakers and steel containers along the cavernous laboratory's' walls. "You cram it too, you IMPOSTER BOT!" Using his hover skirt Tom forcefully stuffed the foreign object into Timmy's beak, the second interior beck to be exact.

Angrily the stifled robot sputtered and struggled to clear his beak but the resilient bottle stayed lodged in place.

"That's better." Tom resumed questioning Crow. "Hey, how's Larry lookin' these days?"

"Well, all things considered..." Crow reached into the vent behind him and presented a skull with a thick pair of glasses over its eye sockets. "Not bad!"

"Eww!"

Joel took the skull from Crow's hands, placing it gently on the ground out of reach, then pulled Crow from the wreckage. "Come on, let's go."

"Ahh!" Crow suddenly screamed in fear.

"What?"

"Larry's got me!"

"Huh?" Joel looked over Crow's body and saw the remains of Larry's skeletal hand clinging onto Crow's leg. "I got it." He pulled the bones loose as he walked toward the door with Crow in his hands. Tom hovered close behind the duo, just at Joel's shoulder.

"Hey! Guess what Joel?" Crow asked sheepishly.

"What?"

"After all those times you said 'no' when we walked out of the theater, you're finally carrying me!"

Joel just smiled the odd comment as the trio joined Mike at the elevator doors. "Any luck?"

"No..." Mike unhooked the latest failed key from the ring and tossed it over his shoulder. The wayward key landed on a growing pile of previously tried and tossed keys at Mike's feet. "Damn it, how many keys does one guy need?"

"Turns out, ALOT, when you're evil and paranoid." Joel answered dryly.

"Am not!" Tom and Crow quipped in unison.

"Cute." Mike replied as he attempted yet another key in the lock. "Hey wait..." He froze suddenly as an important thought popped in his head. "Do you think 'Pinky and the Brain' heard the vent collapse?"

Joel looked around the room again, this time taking survey of the mess. "I don't know. Stone walls are pretty thick."

"So is Dr. Forrester." Mike instinctively insulted his captor. "But I bet he's on his way right now!"

"Ahem..." From behind the preoccupied group someone had cleared their throat in authoritative manner. "Think again you towering blonde buffoon!"

The escaping quartet turned around and looked right into Dr. Forrester's beady eyes. Brain Guy was standing just behind the mad scientist with a look of malevolence on his pale face. Both men were armed with the oversized clown hammers and bad attitudes.

"I'm already here!"

"Oh..." Mike moaned in disappointment.

"Aw, come on!" Joel extended his arms in an exaggerated, flummoxed manner. "How'd you even get in here?!"

Dr. Forrester just grinned arrogantly as he joyfully brandished the clown hammer in his hands. "Too bad you're not friends with beings of higher intelligence." He taunted Joel wickedly. "Brain Guy here has an amazing parlor trick: telepathic teleportation."

"So..." Joel easily deciphered Dr. Forrester's terminology. "all he had to do was think about you two appearing in this room, and it just happened with that single thought?" He tilted his head unimpressed at the revelation.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"That's convenient..."

Dr. Forrester casually looked at the pile of wreckage that had been the result of the vent collapse and focused on the skull sitting next to the carnage. "Is that Larry?"

Joel relaxed his shoulders as he looked at the skull. "Yes, that's Larry; Crow found his nametag." He returned his focus to his captor. "Wait. Isn't using teleportation cheating?"

"Uh, actually..." Brain Guy stepped forward, clumsily handling his brain in one hand and the clown hammer in the other. "it's not so much teleportation through the concept of thought, as it's caused by-"

"Shut it 'Scotty', no one cares!" Dr. Forrester cut Brain Guy off midsentence and glared at Joel like vulnerable prey. "Anyway, Joel, this is where your feeble escape attempt ends and your unbearable pain begins!" He laughed menacingly at the very notion.

Joel looked over his shoulder to see Tom hovering in front of Mike, who was as inconspicuously and quietly as possible still testing keys in the lock. Mike averted his gaze upward up at Joel and shook his head slightly 'no'.

Refusing to give up on their only escape plan Crow climbed out of Joel's arms and planted himself between his friends and the sinister scientist. "I don't think so honorary 'doctor lame!' "

"Uh, Crow..." Tom watched as Crow defiantly stood his ground. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to put an end to this dickweed once and for all! I'm mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" On that cliché note Crow lunged at Dr. Forrester and wrapped around his long leg.

"Get off of me!" Dr. Forrester protested loudly as he stumbled backward uncontrollably.

"Never!" Crow bit down as hard as he could on Dr. Forrester's knee and refused to let up.

Joel was unsure of what to do. "Crow! Are you crazy?!" He didn't want Crow to get hurt but didn't dare get involved in the physical altercation.

Crow only growled like a rabid dog in response as Dr. Forrester continued to flail about in a frugal, 'interpretive dance', desperately trying to release Crow from his leg.

Seeing that the situation had taken an interesting 'twist', Brain Guy weakly lifted his own clown hammer into the air. He was barely able to lift it any higher than his shoulder, resulting in a poor attempt to threaten the rather jaded group.

Tom hovered in front of Joel and laughed evilly as he stared down Brain Guy. "I got this one fellas!"

With a single focused tackle to Brain Guy's chest, Tom managed to push the pale man backward with enough force to cause him to drop the hammer and his brain onto the floor. The green hued brain landed heavily with a sickening, sticky 'splat'.

"Ewww!" Joel and Mike had seen and heard the brain hit the ground.

Easily defeated, Brain Guy laid on the ground flat on his back next to Timmy. He began giggling idiotically at the chaotic scene unfolding around him as Dr. Forrester continued jumping around with Crow attached to his leg. "Green man dance funny!" He pointed at Dr. Forrester just as a child would do. He then noticed Timmy. "Shiny..." His pale hand reached out toward the bound bot curiously. Unable to move or attack Timmy just released stifled growls around the canister still wedged in his beak.

Joel took advantage of the unusual distraction as an opportunity to join Mike at the elevator doors. He resumed assisting Mike in the trial and error of the mass of keys at the elevator door lock.

After regaining his balance from the tackle, Tom hovered toward the large cabinet that had contained the large clown hammers and began taking inventory on the weapons still concealed inside. "It's go-time men! Lock and load!" He pushed open the metal doors and scanned the cabinet's contents. "Hey! A harpoon gun! Neat! Dibs! I call dibs!"

"Servo!" Joel called to the red bot. "Get over here! And put that thing-"

"Twinkies! Score!" Tom had found a full box of the treats at the bottom of the cabinet. "And a crossbow, and a chainsaw, and a slingshot, and a Super Soaker, ooh! Lawn darts! These are totally illegal!"

"Never mind..." Joel returned his focus on the keys and Mike.

Mike had already gone through half the keys on the ring and was feeling desperate. "We're running out of time Joel... We need to think of something else fast!"

"I know!" He checked his pockets for anything to inspire a new idea but only found one of Larry's skeletal fingers. "Gross!"

Dr. Forrester let out a loud wail of pain as Crow's beak finally broke through the fabric of his pants and cut into his skin. "OWIE! You golden bear trap! Release me this instant!" His legs had become entangled in the loose film snaking across the floor, he fell onto his butt and elevated his injured leg high up into the air.

Crow spit out the tattered piece of fabric torn from the pant leg and looked down at the mad scientist. "I'll never let go! Just try and make me 'Bill Nye'!"

"You loud-mouthed freak!"

"Rejected Mario brother!"

As Dr. Forester and Crow continued their brawl on the disheveled lab floor, Mike and Joel continued their work on the door. Brain Guy and Timmy were just laying on the ground, helpless and drooling.

"Wait a minute..." Mike had found a key that fit into the lock. "I think I finally got it!" The key turned slowly with the sound of the doors unlocking under Mike's grip. "It's opening!"

The elevator doors opened wide filling the room with a bright aura of light. "Guys, we need to go!" Joel called for Crow and Tom.

"Right Joel!" Tom hovered toward the elevator doors with the harpoon gun in his tiny hands and bits of eaten Twinkie around his mouth.

"Um, Tom?"

"What? Something on my face?"

"Yes, but I was actually referring to-" Joel motioned to the loaded harpoon gun.

"Souvenir!"

Mike stepped aside to make room for Tom to enter the elevator car and remembered the fight between Crow and Dr. Forrester. "Crow! Let's go!"

"Little busy here Mike!" Crow resumed biting Dr. Forrester's leg, but was growing weary from the fight.

Joel put his hand on Mike's shoulder. "Hey! Remember the storm that drove us in here? We might be in for more trouble once we get out here."

"Right, I have an idea!" Mike made his way over to where Brain Guy had been laid out by Tom on the floor and retrieved the dropped clown hammer. "It's hammer time!" With the hammer gripped tightly in hand Mike turned his attention to the large supercomputer / weather dominator that he and Joel had pushed against the door.

Dr. Forrester had managed to pry Crow's beak open and off his leg at last. As he stood up, careful of his bleeding leg, he held the attacking robot out at arm's length and through his twisted smile he belted out a triumphant, "Aha! I win..."

"I don't think so!" Crow taunted, pieces of fabric falling from his beak.

"Uh... What?" Dr. Forrester's smirk changed into a grimace. He looked beyond Crow and saw Mike aiming his clown hammer over the weather dominator. "You wouldn't..."

Mike looked over at Dr. Forrester. "Wanna' bet?"

"If you do-"

"You'll what?" Mike was almost enjoying the moment. "Torture us? Kidnap us? Make us watch horrible movies? Seen it!"

"Taped it!" Joel added.

"Done it!" Tom tagged on.

Mike lifted the hammer high into the air. "This is for every child you made cry. For every lackey you tortured."

Crow briefly interrupted. "Except for Brain Guy!"

"Right." Mike agreed.

"And Timmy!"

"Right again... This is for every man, woman and child who, because of you, had to endure the likes of 'Final Justice'!"

Crow piped up again. "Or 'Robot Holocaust'."

Tom called out another movie from the elevator car. "Or 'Devil Doll'!"

"Or..." Joel proudly declared his own most loathsome movie memory from his time on the S.O.L. "'Mitchell'!"

"MITCHELL!" All four friends roared in a unified war cry as Mike brought the hammer down as hard as he could onto the massive computer.

Bits of fragmented metal exploded from the destroyed computer as thick black billows of smoke and blue sparks poured out of the cracked casing.

"NO!" Dr. Forrester screamed in angry protest! "You'll pay for that!" He threw Crow onto the ground and put his foot on top of Crow's neck pinning he robot to the floor as he lifted his own clown hammer into the air. "Say 'hi' to Larry for me!" Just as Mike had done before, Dr. Forrester swung his hammer down as hard as he could, but instead of smashing a computer he smashed Crow's body.

"CROW!" Joel yelled in horrified concern. "NOO!"

"Crow!" Joel just watched in horror, the scene unfolding in slow motion as Crow's torso cracked from the impact of the clown hammer. Small bits of gold metal flaked free and fell on the ground like snow all around Crow while he laid uncharacteristically still beneath Dr. Forrester's foot.

"You little..." Mike couldn't bring himself to finish his sentence as he dropped the clown hammer with emotional disbelief at the sight before him.

Dr. Forrester lifted his foot and looked down at the damaged bot with sick pleasure gleaming in his eyes. "I warned you."

Unable to control his hover skirt in the wake of this tragic moment Tom Servo silently fell to the floor of the elevator car. The harpoon gun dropping from his hands onto the floor next to him.

Joel couldn't bear the idea of Crow being destroyed, being dead. He ran toward his fallen friend paying no attention to Dr. Forrester or the clown hammer still in his hands. Just as Joel reached Crow, positioning himself precariously close to Dr. Forrester and danger, Mike bolted toward the vile scientist and tackled him with a tremendous impact!

During the tackle several tubes, wires and pipes were pulled free from the wall as Dr. Forrester desperately clawed at the surface to keep himself from falling. Several unseen gasses escaped from the broken pipes and began filling the room. After Mike knocked Dr. Forrester to the ground he put him in a tight headlock, leaving Joel free to tend to Crow without any threat.

Joel carefully put his hands on Crow's head and cradled the little bot gently. "Crow? Crow buddy! Speak to me!"

Crow's black, diamond pupils had changed slightly, looking more like 'x's than diamonds. His beak opened slightly to speak, but no sound came out.

Through gritted teeth, Dr. Forrester in a mildly strained voice, addressed Joel's emotional response to Crow's condition. "He's just a machine! You can build another!" He coughed a little and tried to pull Mike's arm away from his neck. "Call him off! Let me go!"

Joel shook his head, still very upset. "No! I can't! And I won't! There will never be another Crow T. Robot! He's our friend!"

Dr. Forrester continued to struggle pathetically to free himself from Mike's grip, but Mike was too strong and too angry to wriggle free. "You're quite an oddity, Joel Robinson." He continued to taunt Joel, despite his embarrassing predicament. "You're almost a freak! Just like your little friends..."

"Being an oddity doesn't bother me, as long as I'm a thought provoking one." Joel answered defiantly as he carefully scooped the broken robot up off the floor into his arms. As he carried his injured friend back toward the elevator and safety Joel tried to encourage Crow to hang on, hoping Crow could hear his words. "Crow! Don't do this to us! Don't you leave us!"

As Joel made his way back across the room he unknowingly kicked Brain Guy's fallen brain back toward the otherwise incapacitated alien. With his brain now closer to his body Brain Guy's intelligence and sense of being slowly returned to him. He looked over and saw Timmy laying on the floor next to him, snarling. "Gah!" He quickly scrambled to his feet in nauseated terror at the dangerous little bot.

Joel laid Crow on the floor of the elevator car and pressed his ear against Crow's damaged chest. "Hang in there buddy, we're going to get you out of here!"

Tom began openly weeping at the sight of his dying friend. "No! Come on Crow! You've never given up on anything before, don't give up now! He has a strong heart, he wants to live! LIVE!"

Mike adjusted his grip to release Dr. Forrester from the headlock and into a full nelson. He stood up and forced the deranged scientist to his feet as well. "They don't call me 'Mike Nelson' for nothing!"

Tom heard the quip and rebutted loudly. "That's your actual name stupid!"

Dr. Forrester began flailing his arms about weakly over his head in an attempt to hit Mike, but each swing was a miss. His green glasses had fallen from his face during the struggle and broken on the floor. This gave Mike another advantage over the snagged doctor in his arms.

"Excuse me?" Brain Guy had finally composed himself and was standing in front of Dr. Forrester and Mike. "You dropped these." He tried to hand the glasses to Dr. Forrester submissively.

"HELP ME! You FOOL!" Dr. Forrester managed to utter as he swung at Brain Guy's hand, knocking the already broken pair of the glasses back to the floor.

"Oh, right." Brain Guy looked at Mike who glared at him with immeasurable intimidation. He looked back to Dr. Forrester feeling frightened. "How?"

"HOW?!" His face was turning red from anger and restricted blood flow to his brain. "Why you..."

From the elevator Joel called for Mike. "Come on Mike! We gotta' move! Crow needs our help! NOW!"

Mike threw Dr. Forrester to the stone ground with a vengeance! He looked to Brain Guy and pointed at the pale freak, who instinctively put his hands in the air as if surrendering. "Look 'Brainiac', I'm going to get into that elevator with my friends, and we're going to leave this Hellhole, and you're NOT going to stop us! Am I right?"

Brain Guy nodded quickly and cowardly at the question.

"Good." Mike began jogging toward the elevator, his blue jumpsuit slightly torn and dirty. "AND... Fair warning, this place has been leaking explosive gas for some time now, and is going to blow. I'd get out now if I were you."

"Uh, good idea." Brain Guy used his mental skills to teleport himself safely out of the building and out of sight.

Mike climbed into the elevator car, careful not to step on Crow, Joel or Tom. He pressed the floor button for the lobby but the doors wouldn't close. He pressed it again but the doors remained open. "Now what?" He punched the button and held it down but just as before, the doors wouldn't budge. "Aw, come ON! This is ludicrous!"

Dr. Forrester had pulled himself upright into a sitting position on the floor. He watched as his four escaping captives sat helplessly idle in the stationary elevator. "What's wrong? Out of gas?" He laughed wickedly. "Oh wait, I know. You left the parking brake on, didn't you?"

"Shut it!" Joel yelled at Dr. Forrester. He had lifted Crow up from the floor and was cradling the damaged robot. "Mike, this isn't good... I don't think Crow can hold on much longer."

"I know! I know!" He was losing his cool. "But I don't know why-" He was studying the button controls inside the car when he finally found the problem. "Are you kidding?!"

"What? What is it?"

"We need ANOTHER key!"

The interior lock of the elevator was new and of an unusual design. It was much larger than its exterior counterpart and required an object of a small, cylindrical shape rather than a traditional key.

Dr. Forrester continued to laugh maniacally. "Yes, and it needs a key that does not exist. I changed the lock shortly after you arrived!"

Tom began panicking. "Oh man, it really is game over! Game over, man, game over!"

"We can't just give up!" Mike was adamant about escaping. "We just need to find something, anything to fit in the lock."

"You're right." Joel answered sadly, his eyes focused on Crow's broken body. "I think I have an idea, but..."

"I got him." Mike kneeled down next to Joel and gathered Crow into his arms. "Do what you need to do."

Joel positioned himself in front of the lock and fumbled with the various objects he pulled from his jumpsuit pockets. "This should work..."

The building gas in the room was beginning to overwhelm the humans. Joel and Mike wiped beaded sweat from their brows while Dr. Forrester began coughing uncomfortably. He stood up from the ground and straightened his tie. It was then he finally noticed Timmy bound and gagged on the floor, snarling in a puddle of his own drool. "Timmy, what happened? Where is Brain Guy? Oh, never mind!" He proceeded to dust off his green lab coat. "It doesn't matter," he pointed at the elevator, "you four will NOT escape my clutches. Not again."

Just then the elevator began sputtering to life. "I got it!" Joel declared happily. "We're out of here!" He coughed a little as the toxic gasses continued seeping into the room. The elevator doors began shutting at a painfully slow rate.

"What?!" Dr. Forrester was furious! "NO!" He looked at Timmy angrily. "Do something you piece of junk!"

As the doors began creeping close Tom Servo had an idea. He retrieved his harpoon gun from the floor and took aim at the canister lodged in Timmy's beak. "Smile, you son of a..." He fired the harpoon bolt just as the elevator doors finally shut completely and the car began its long awaited ascent back to the surface.

Dr. Forrester had just enough time to register exactly what Tom Servo had done, as the harpoon struck its target: the explosive canister lodge in Timmy's beak.

"Oh, poopie..."

The fired harpoon successfully penetrated the metallic container lodged in Timmy's beak. Upon impact a hot, bright spark was unleashed causing immediate ignition in the room that had been filling with explosive gasses and, now, compressed oxygen.

Dr. Forrester, the remaining human occupant of the room, covered his face with his lab coat as he uttered his famous last words: "Oh, poopie..."

From inside the ascending elevator car Joel, Mike, Tom Servo and Crow heard the explosion and felt the entire elevator shaft tremble from the force of the massive shockwave from the 13th basement floor below. Joel was jostled enough to fall to his knees next to Mike, who was still holding Crow in his arms. Tom, unable to hover in the rising car, had dropped the harpoon gun and was desperately clinging onto Mike's arm out of fear.

"Think we'll get to the surface in time?" Mike asked having to yell over the loud blast, shaking car and Tom's panicking repetitive screams.

"I hope so!" Joel yelled back, his eyes focused on the displayed floor number over the door. "We need to help Crow!"

Installed in the ceiling of the car, the normal white light that illuminated the elevator had changed to red as the building's fire alarms went into action. However, the car wasn't halted or inhibited in anyway by the emergency conditions. In fact, it seemed as though the car was speeding up!

The digital display of the floor numbers began counting down at an incredible rate: B13, B12, B11, B10, B09, B08...

"We're almost there..." Joel mentally kept his fingers crossed as the car continued its rapid ascent.

The floors continued to wiz by a optimistic pace: B07, B06, B05, B04...

Mike had lifted Crow higher in his arms pressing him against his jumpsuited chest and began counting the passing floors, too. "Come on, just a little more..."

In red, digital text plastered above the door, the final floors that separated them from freedom came it an end: B03, B02, B01, L1.

"Lobby!" Tom yelled out. "Let's make like a bread truck and haul buns!"

While Mike held tightly onto Crow, Joel used his hands to force open the expectedly slow elevator doors. "Go! I'll get Servo!"

Mike didn't hesitate or question the suggestion. Like a quarterback running for a touchdown, Mike ran down the long hallway dodging the small embers that were eating through the walls and leapt over fallen debris that was littering the rundown facility. He used his arms to shield Crow from any further potential harm during his mad dash for freedom.

Joel picked up Tom and logically followed the same opened pathway that Mike had successfully tread before him. Tom had finally stopped screaming in fear and was now screaming in euphoric adrenaline.

Mike stopped abruptly at the exit and waited for Joel to catch up. "We're home free!"

With both robots in their arms Joel and Mike finally escaped their vengeful captor and stepped foot outside of Gizmonic Institute. The unnaturally spawned storm that had driven them inside the metaphorical madhouse had passed, leaving only a damp parking lot and several broken branches in its wake.

The human duo turned around and faced the building just as an explosion from the numerous, secretive basements below tore through the upper floors. The escaping explosion partially burst outward from the entrance doors before it continued its destructive ascension of the building, reaching its absolute peak as it erupted through the roof in a single spectacular blast.

"Wow..." Tom muttered to no one in particular. "'The Towering Inferno'!"

What was once a structure of noble ingenuity was now an infamous sham engulfed in flames. Acrid black smoke billowed from the smoldering structure, casting an ominous shadow over the freed captives as they watched the unfolding carnage from the relative safety of the parking lot.

Joel suddenly snapped back to reality and looked over at Crow in Mike's arms. "Come on, I have a toolbox in my truck!" He motioned for Mike to follow as he began jogging to the parked red vehicle only a few feet away.

Just as Joel reached the handle of his truck door a second explosion from the desiccated building at his back sent large amounts of debris of varying sizes in all directions.

"Duck!" Tom saw a very large chunk of concrete plummeting to the Earth and the truck before Joel did.

Fortunately Joel was able to step back and out of harm's way just as the massive projectile crushed the cab of the red pick up. Crunching metal and shattering glass echoed loudly, filling the air and covering the ground of the parking lot all around their feet.

"Aww, man..." Joel scanned over the wreckage of his what used to be his truck. "I just bought this!" He sighed and tried to pull open the damaged driver's side door but it was jammed.

"Problem?" Tom asked sarcastically as he looked up at Joel from his arms.

"Yeah, you haven't opened the glove box yet!" He quipped boldly as he put Tom in the smashed cab of the truck through the broken window. "Careful of the glass!"

"Ow! Ow, ow..." Tom whined as he made his way to the glove box. "What am I even looking for?"

"The keys! Now, move it!" He saw Mike was standing at the back of the truck. "Here." He walked over and folded down the back of the truck. "There's a tarp in the toolbox, we can lay him on that."

Tom hovered out of the truck window with the keys in his small white hand. "Here you go, pushy!" He handed the keys to Joel.

"Thanks." Joel quickly unlocked the large toolbox attached to the truck bed and pulled out the tarp, draping it over the bed for Crow to lay on.

Mike gently placed the broken robot on the blue tarp and stood back. He didn't share natural the interest in tinkering or building like Joel, and the memories of his failed attempts trying to repair the robots or building a robot of his own on the S.O.L. were still fresh in his mind. "Think you can repair him?"

"I don't know yet. I have to remove his chest plate and get a closer look at the damage before I can say for sure. With any luck he'll just need to have some basic hardware replaced and a reboot."

Mike and Tom watched in silent tension as Joel easily found each necessary tool in the oddly organized toolbox. There were even spare microprocessors, microchips, wires, bolts and batteries inside. With near-surgical dexterity Joel began taking Crow's body apart.

Joel surveyed the damage with growing concern. "Come on buddy, come on back to us!" He began using pliers to pull away loose wires and broken circuit boards contained in Crow's chest. "We're going to get you out of the bone orchard, just hang on!"

A third powerful explosion rocked the burning building, sending more debris into the air. A pair of burned, broken green glasses had been blown from the building and came to a sliding halt just behind Mike at his feet. Tom looked back at the burning building only a few hundred feet away, then spied the scorched glasses on the ground. "So... Do you think Dr. Forrester survived?" He didn't want to think about Crow at the moment and wanted to change the subject.

Mike shot him a dirty look for even asking a such a dark question.

"What? Just... you know, making conversation!"

"I don't know." Mike reluctantly answered. "Explosions are pretty thorough at eliminating the enemy. We've played 'GoldenEye', you know what I'm talking about."

"Proximity mines?" Tom rhetorically asked.

"Proximity mines." Mike confirmed.

"Crow?" Joel asked hopefully as he sat down his tools and finished reattaching the loose wires. He switched the little bot's power on. "Can you hear me?"

Mike and Tom watched as Joel gently sat the newly repaired, but still rough looking robot upright in the back of the truck.

Crow slowly opened his beak, his eyes returning to their normal diamond pattern. He whispered something indistinct and no one understood him.

"What?" Joel leaned in closer to listen to Crow.

Crow repeated his comment.

Mike leaned over the back of the truck also trying to understand Crow. "What did he say?"

Joel sighed in relief and laughed a little. "He said: 'There's another Skywalker'."

"Oh!" Tom groaned in intense annoyance. "Seriously Crow?"

Crow started giggling immaturely as he looked around at the concerned faces watching over him. "What the hell? What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me!"

Joel looked over to the burning building in the distance; the once grand structure now just blackened support beams, fractured concrete, broken windows and ash. "We won."

Joel sighed in massive relief as he sat down on the tailgate of the truck next to Crow. Mike, who was just as relieved as Joel, sat on the other side of Crow while Tom Servo came to rest on the center of the tailgate in front of Crow. The newly freed quartet finally relaxed as they watched the remaining structure, that was once Gizmonic Institute, smolder in an amber glow that was eerily accentuated by the thick black smoke overhead.

"We finally won..." Joel repeated out loud. "Never thought we'd see the day."

"Why's that?" Mike casually inquired. "Did you really think Dr. Forrester was that smart and that determined?"

"No," Joel rubbed the back of his neck. "I just never gave any thought to revenge, let alone blowing up a building on him."

"Oh."

Tom cleared his throat. "Technically, I blew up the building. You're just an accessory. You all are."

Joel laughed a little as he patted Tom on the shoulder. "Right, thanks for clearing that up."

"Any time."

Crow quickly chimed in. "Servo, you flirt!" He then looked back and forth between Joel and Mike. "So... what'd I miss?"

Mike scratched his hairline. "Well, after you got smashed with the clown hammer, I tackled Dr. Forrester while Joel got you to safety, and Tom didn't cry."

"Uh-huh..." Crow was intrigued. "And then what?"

Joel continued on. "The room started filling with gas, we got into the elevator and Tom shot the canister in Timmy's mouth via 'Chief Brody' style."

"And then what?" Crow pestered.

Tom finished filling in the rest of the details. "The elevator hastily rose to the surface as if we were escaping from the fiery depths of Hell itself-"

"Tom..." Joel wasn't too fond of Tom adding unnecessary drama or darkness to his soliloquies. "Stay in reality, please."

"Okay, okay." Tom cleared his throat. "Anyhoo, we got back to the lobby and Mike hauled his giant butt down the hall with you, and then Joel hauled his smaller butt down the hall with me, and then we got out of the building just as it exploded like the hospital from 'The Dark Knight'."

"And theeeeeen...?" Crow was adamant on knowing every detail during his state of unconsciousness.

Joel put his hand on Crow's shoulder. "And then you were repaired and now we're just sitting here and enjoying our fresh taste of freedom."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Fffft!" Crow made another fart noise. "How anti-climactic! Now I wish I was still broken!"

Tom sighed "We should've let you die."

"Hey! That was my joke!"

"I know."

"Hey!" Joel chimed in. "That was my joke!"

"We know!" Crow and Tom answered in unison.

Mike just shook his head at the oddly amusing banter taking place around him. "Well, that's over, what do we do now? Say 'good-bye' and turn for home?"

"Nooo!" Crow and Tom answered again in unison, but this time their response was full of worry not humor.

Joel slightly tilted his head as he pondered a potential alternative. "Well, I live about two hours from here and I do need a ride home. You guys are welcome to crash at my place for a while."

"Yeah!" Tom was especially excited. "Let's do that!"

Crow leaned against Joel. "Can we stay up late and eat popcorn and tell scary stories and build a tent and-"

"Yes, yes." Joel wrapped his arm around Crow's shoulders. "It's okay with me, if it's okay with Mike."

"Say yes, Mike!" Crow begged.

Tom started bouncing excitedly against Mike's leg. "Oh please, oh please, oh please!"

"Okay! Okay!" Mike laughed as he pushed Tom gently to the side. "We'll go. It's getting late anyway."

"Alright! Sleepover!"

"Great. Just let me take care of a few things and we can go." Joel proceeded to put the tools away as Mike and the bots climbed into Mike's car.

Mike watched in the rearview mirror as Joel leaned into his truck and pulled the registration out of the truck's glove box. He then walked to the tailgate and pulled the license plate off the truck. His errands taken care of, Joel climbed into the passenger seat of the car and tossed the license plate in the backseat between the two bots.

"Uh, Joel?"

"Yes Mike?"

"Why did you do that?"

"Eventually someone is going to notice the torched building and my crushed truck parked outside. I don't want to deal with a whole lot of questions."

"Oh. Smart."

"Yeah. Anyway you're going to want to take a left. I live in kind of a remote area."

"Right." Mike turned over the engine of his small car and drove out of the parking lot.

"No, he said left!" Crow butted in.

"Right." Mike replied sheepishly.

"No, LEFT!" Tom yelled out.

"Right."

"LEFT!" The two bots yelled in unison.

"Right."

Joel just shook his head as he listened to his robots, essentially his children, pick back and forth with Mike, who was essentially their big brother. "I missed you guys!"

Tom suddenly stopped arguing to ask a sincere question. "Hey Joel, what did ya' do after you got back home without us?"

"I found a modest dwelling, got wrapped up in a 'Lost in Space' marathon and tried to drink my own weight in root beer."

"How'd that work out for you?"

"Pretty good, until I had to pee!"

"Ewww!"

While everyone laughed at the classic response Mike felt the dried blood on his chin start to itch and he tried to wipe it away with the back of his hand. Joel saw this from the corner of his eye and pulled a white handkerchief from his jumpsuit pocket. He handed it over to Mike. "Here, use this."

"Oh, thanks." Mike wiped the red stain from his chin. "Much better." As he tucked the stained rag in his own pocket an odd thought popped in his head.

"Hey, Joel."

"Yeah?"

"When we were in the elevator car and needed some kind of key, what did you use as the key?"

From the backseat Tom overheard the question. "Hey, yeah! What did you use Joel? That little flashlight?"

"No." Joel answered flatly. "I, uh, used one of... Larry's fingers."

Mike looked over at Joel with a giant grin of absolute surprise. "No... You didn't!" He started laughing again.

"Yeah, I did."

"Which one?" Mike kept laughing.

"Take a guess..."

"So... in the end, you..." Mike drifted off.

"Yes. I gave Dr. Forrester the finger."

The car erupted in mischievous laughter as the freed friends continued their journey to Joel's isolated home.

From the smoldering, smoky bowels of Deep 13 Dr. Forrester coughed harshly as he pushed several broken support beams off his chest and legs. His neon green lab coat had multiple holes burned into the fabric exposing his torn, grey dress shirt beneath. Even the long black tie around his neck was now halved thanks to the explosive fire eating away at the material like a wick.

Rubbing away the clinging ash and blackness from his face he sat on the floor, feeling defeated but not deterred. He glanced around the darkened room, the only light emanated from the fading embers still burning on the charred remnants of Gizmonic Institute. Surveying the extensive damage, noting that Timmy had been completely destroyed by the explosion and that Brain Guy was apparently M.I.A., he was secretly hoping he was actually K.I.A., Dr. Forrester summed up the entire day's events succinctly and eloquently. "Well, that sucked."

"I'll say!" From out of the shadows a lone, cloaked figure emerged. "You never could get one over any of those guys, Clay." He started chuckling to himself, clearly amused by Dr. Forrester's latest and greatest failed plan.

"Wait a minute, I know that voice." Dr. Forrester approached the figure and pulled down the hood. "Frank?!"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Frank? What are you doing here?! You died! And for once it wasn't because I killed you! You look good by the way."

"Thank. Oh, yeah. Long story, here's the summary: After I got to 'Second-Banana Heaven' I was sort of given a special job."

"Oh really?" He stood up straight and attempted to brush off his clothes in a superfluous attempt to improve his appearance. "And what job is that? Errand boy for the Archangel Gabriel?" He snickered condescendingly at his own lame joke.

"No, I'm a... I'm a Soultaker."

"A 'soul taker'? I'm not familiar with that particular occupation."

"Well, it's not that complicated. It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like."

"So, you take souls?"

"Yup."

"...And now you're here..."

"Obviously."

"...to take my soul?" He failed to hide his cowardice shaking in his voice.

"What? Oh, hell no!" Frank laughed and put his hand on Dr. Forrester's shoulder.

"Oh, well, that's a relief."

"Yeah, I'm not here for your soul. As it turns out you already sold your soul for the chance to take over the world when you were nine years old. I think you got a bum deal, by the way. At any rate you have nothing for me to take." He continued chuckling to himself.

"Then... why are you here?"

"Oh, right. I'm here for Timmy's soul."

"Timmy?! But Timmy... is..."

"A dark specter given physical form that's reminiscent of Crow." Frank finished. "But he has a soul. Now it's mine."

"Oh. Okay."

"Yeah. Come on Timmy, let's go."

"Uh, Frank."

"Yes Clay?"

"He was blown up. He's not going anywhere. At least not anywhere fast."

"No problem. I have a garbage bag." He pulled a large Hefty bag from a pocket in his cloak. "It's to be expected in this line of work."

"Good thinking. Oh, say Frank..."

"Yes?" He answered with an oddly upbeat attitude as he began picking up the individual pieces of Timmy scattered throughout the room.

"You wouldn't happen to know if Joel or Mike or the robots..."

"Yeah. They escaped."

"Damn!" He stamped his foot angrily like a little kid.

"And Brain Guy teleported out of here before the building blew. He's hiding under your mom's bed."

"Damn!"

"And... Joel was able to save Crow."

"Shit!"

"Whoa!" Frank turned around to scold Dr. Forrester. "Language!"

"Sorry..."

After he finished picking up Timmy, Frank walked back over to his former mentor/abuser/friend. "You know what you need?"

"What?"

"A vacation."

Dr. Forrester just rolled his eyes and folded his arms defiantly over his chest.

"No, seriously. I hear Canada is nice this time of year."

"Meh!" He brushed Frank's comment away indifferently as he walked toward the large door across the room. It was still barricaded with the couch and super computer, but now twelve floors worth of charred debris was stacked on top of the already formidable blockade. "Uh, Frank?"

"Yes?"

"Before you go, think you could help me find a way out?"

"Uh..." Frank looked at the labyrinthine carnage of the room for only a moment before he offered up his only unhelpful suggestion. "Think you could climb through the air ducts?"

* * *

 

"Hi-keebah!" Crow shouted loudly as he did he best 'cannonball' off the diving board into the pool.

"Watch it Crow!" Tom Servo was floating around the pool in an inflatable safety ring, a large pina colada with a tiny pink umbrella in his hands. "You almost spilled my drink!"

Crow's head broke the surface of the water, he shook the water out of his 'ears'. "Sorry Servo." He looked around the pool quickly. "Hey! I lost my trunks!"

"You weren't wearing any trunks!"

"Hee, hee, hee... Naked!" Crow giggle immaturely as he dove back down under the water.

From the side of the pool Joel and Mike were kicked back and relaxed in a couple of large deckchairs as they watched the robots enjoying themselves.

"Joel, I have to tell ya', I never imagined you as the mansion type of guy."

"Well, I wasn't. At least, not at first." Joel admitted coyly.

"How's that?"

"After I returned to Earth, you know, after repairing the Satellite of Love, I got a little stir crazy and needed something to do as an outlet for my creativity."

"What was the solution?" Mike asked as he lifted the dark sunglasses from his eyes and looked over at Joel.

"Writing."

"Really?" He looked around at the impressive property. "All this came from writing?"

"Yup."

"What did you write about?"

"My time on the satellite. What else?"

Mike facepalmed himself. "Why didn't I think to do that?!"

"Don't feel bad. It took me four and a half years before I thought of it."

"Huh..." He relaxed again. "Did you self publish?"

"I tried for a while, but I couldn't get any publicity and it was too much money. Remember, it cost me a ton to get back up there."

"And we appreciate you keeping us from burning up in the Earth's atmosphere by fixing the ship!"

"Yeah, I know, don't worry about it." He ran his hands through his hair. "Anyway, after Gypsy started 'ConGypsCo.' she found me and offered me a stake in her company."

"Man, I wish I took her up on her offer."

"I didn't take her offer, I didn't want her to feel like she owed me anything, but I did ask for her help in getting my book published and the rest is history!"

"Wow... That's impressive." Mike complimented Joel's humble nature about the whole ordeal. "How many books did you write?"

"Five."

"Only five?"

"Well, one book per year I was stranded. I'd like to continue writing, but I really have no idea what happened up there after I left."

"Do you want to know?" Mike offered.

"Do you mind?"

"No! Not at all. It'd be nice to finally have someone to talk to who can actually relate to what I went through!"

"I know. It's amazing how you never really leave the Satellite of Love once you've been onboard."

**-The End**


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